Home Sweet Home

We made it back to Annis Bay around 5pm today (Mon, Jan 10th). As we drove down Bernie Road, David's voice rung out from the back of the car with a victory song he associates with the Barca football (soccer) team. It was nice to see how happy he was to be home. Part of our discussion on the way home was how much we already were missing our Catalan relatives.

campions, campions,
ole ole ole,
campions, campions,
ole ole ole,
Barça Barça
[insert three claps of the hand]
Barça Barça

We are happy to be home, but clearly Catalonya is still on our minds. At the McDonald`s in Kelowna, David came to me and said, `I want to play with that girl. Does she speak English or Catalan?`

It was a wonderful trip. David and I spoke more Catalan than we ever have. Our relatives worked hard to understand us and used their English whenever they could to smooth the communication. We are all motivated to get practicing for our next trip so we can speak more and more with Joaquim's side of the family.

We last left Arta in London at Heathrow at a desk where she was speaking with a manager from British Airways. She had missed her flight. We all were convinced the flight left early. It looked like she would be taken care of, but we had to run to catch our own flight. I just called the Bates home and Greg reports that she called from a hotel in London to say she would be delayed by a day. My goodbye to her was "Try to take in the theatre tonight!"

Thanks to Glen, we were able to drive right up to the house, grateful that the piles of snow were to the right and left of our car and not in front of it. Joaquim has swept the snow off the car that was left behind here, and has made sure it will run for me in the morning. We have laundry in both machines, grateful for the heat that is moving through the vents.

The salmon for dinner is defrosting on the counter. The rice is in the rice cooker. Now, off to make the salad and put olive oil into the setrill that we found in our last few minutes in Barcelona at the airport. Arta has a matching one. I hope both she and her setrill made it home safe and sound. We all learned to love olive oil and baslamic vinegar as our dressing on our salad at Tieta Rosa's house. It will be strange to set the table tonight for 3 instead of 8.

Bonnie