GIRONA – Football, Friends and Familiar Roads

We’ve had some long travel days thus far, like our 4.5 hour ferry followed by 2 mile walk through downtown Athens to find a rental car followed by a 5.5 hour drive to the tiny town of Vonitsa in the middle of the night, but I don’t know if I will ever have another day that is quite as wild, crazy and truly whirlwind as our mad dash to the FC Barcelona game and arrival in Girona. We woke up at 5 am on our boat in the Nile River, loaded into a transport van complete with curtains and shag carpet and drove to the Aswan airport. There we boarded a 1.5 hr flight from Aswan to Cairo which somehow, despite the less than stellar general timeliness (as in, NEVER) of Egypt Air, was miraculously on time. Once in Cairo we had to navigate our way into the international terminal where we were met with the meanest, grumpiest, most intimidating Egyptian security and customs guard who nearly didn’t let us enter the international section of the airport as he had somehow never seen a mobile boarding pass, and was quite angry that I had let my scarf down around my shoulders as we were running through the stifling hot airport.

We finally made it through with more than a little stress and onto our 4.5 hour flight to Barcelona. Once again, the travel gods were with us and we were only a few minutes late arriving in Barca. However, it was a Saturday and there was a solid customs line to contend with and as we all know, there is really nothing you can do about customs other than sit it out and wait. When we finally got our stamps we sprinted away and to the rental car pickup counter where we tried to will the woman behind the desk into speediness as we watched the start of the game approach. We finally got our massive Vito euro passenger van (we needed something to move 6 of us once Nana and Baba arrived and it was the only choice) complete with more dings and scrapes (the life of a big car in Europe is not an easy life) and a dashboard that was programed to Greek, thus completely incomprehensible, and made our way to Camp Nou. Will screeched to a stop outside the stadium and the boys and I sprinted out, in, up and down to find our seats, somehow only missing the first 20 minutes of the match. About 5 minutes after we sat down, Barcelona scored their first goal and the complete and utter happiness that spread across Holden’s face made all the stress, running and sweating worth it. Will found parking and joined us shortly after, beers in hands, and settled into a rockus, fun, very successful match. Once FC Barcelona had properly defeated Elche, we, and what felt like 10,000 other people, made our way back to our van and slowly, slowly, slowly made our way through all the traffic and off to Girona.

The next few days were passed in that wonderful calm, mellow pace, that comes from a familiar place and it felt like all 4 of our bodies did a massive let down, rest, reset. I’m not sure we realized the subtle tension that runs consistently through your body when you are in such varied and unknown lands, navigating, absorbing and managing the boys through the awe, newness, heat, uncomfort and confusion. We wandered the old stone wall and ran up the steps of the cathedral, revisited our favorite specialty stores, markets and bakeries and relished the addition of so many delicious new coffee shops. We actually cooked a meal (shocking!!!) and sat on the rambla eating patas bravas and fishbowl gin and tonics. We reconnected with our best friends from our time in Girona, relishing that feeling of true friendship where you see each other after nearly 12 years and it feels like no time has passed. Perhaps best of all was watching our boys and theirs fall in love and rage late into the night as we drank wine after dinner, playing headlamp hide and seek and launching bikes and scooters off any obstacle they could find. After a few days we ventured back into Barcelona to take in the Picasso museum, the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell, and then, best of all, to the Barca airport to pick up Nana and Baba who would be with us with for the next 10 days brining much missed hugs, snuggles, and our first child care in 6 weeks (praising hands emoji). Bring on the bike riding and trail running!!