Happy Easter!

Thursday night, we never went to bed.

But, unlike our first attempt to go to Budapest, this preemptive action ensured that we didn't sleep through our early morning flight.

However, it also meant that we spent most of Good Friday taking a kip in our hotel room.

When we finally emerged, we found Barcelona to be a lovely city and discovered that tapas can be a gamble. Our knowledge of Catalan (zero) [note to readers: contrary to popular belief, Spanish is NOT the main lanquage in all parts of Spain, rather Catalan, a mix of Spanish, French, Italian and Latin is the official language in the Cataluyna regions of Spain...would've been nice if one so-called favorite cousin who spent a summer in Spain would have told us this...] made it difficult to read the menu and we wound up with a revolting mixture of raw fish and, it gets worse, raw beef. Whoever likes such delicacies can keep them for themselves! Maybe we'll grow into it when we get older.

Saturday we made it up in time to eat brunch (thankfully the Spanish recognise that people like to sleep in on holiday and kept the breakfast bar open until noon). We felt better when we saw another couple from our flight both then and another day - we weren't the laziest tourists.

We caught the bike tour - cycling through a city that boasts, probably correctly, that no other city saw as much growth as a result of hosting the Olympics... we were definitely not even teenagers in '92 but I think I remember spending the night at Patrick's house playing Monopoly with the gymnastics on in the background.

Sunday we went to the only English speaking church in Barcelona that we could find on the Internet, and there we celebrated Resurrection Sunday with a strong representation of tribes and tongues at the International Church of Barcelona. After an afternoon at the beach, we watched The Passion with Catalan subtitles - if the movie gives you a lot to think about normally, try hearing one language, reading another, and trying to follow by recalling the verses in the only one that you know!

Monday we went sailing- well we sat on a large touristy vessel with 20 other people while 2 guys did all of the work.

Coming home we were quite annoyed with the nearly 2 hour delay to an already late night flight which resulted in us missing the train(s) we wished to catch and not arriving home until 4 am. Luckily, we watched a movie on Bree's birthday present from her parents, making the time pass more quickly. Door to door, our holiday ended up being 97 hours, so close to the century mark.

And for more stats, this trip marked our 15th month anniversary and the 10th country that we've been to together during that time (Spain, France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, Monaco, the UK and the US of A; we don't count our brief transit time through the Czech Republic).

Our only Easter eggs were the Resurrection eggs that my mom sent... we just bought each other ice cream instead. And our friends over here seem to never had seen a plastic egg - all they use are the Cadbury creme-filleds by the dozens... what a marketing coup!

We're back to work, but two days in a row we've been home before dark, which is quite an accomplishment.

If you still check this...

If you still check this, then you are either a true friend or are not being as diligent at work as you should be. Whichever category you fall into, thanks for your persistence and I'm happy to be able to reward you today with... a post. That's right a small tid-bit of an update on our lives.

In our defense:
1) Other fellow bloggers seem to have also slowed down as of late... is blogging supposed to be something that you do like a daily journal entry or only when you have something worthwhile to post? PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW.
2) Busy season should be over shortly, at which time, we will be out of new excuses for not making time to post.

But back to more exciting matters with an exercise theme:
1) B's team won the championship of their basketball tournament. When she comes home tonight, we should know what her prize(s) are. Last week, she was knocked out by the eventual champion of the free-throw shootout... she was the only one to take him to double-overtime.

2) I bought a bike, AND more excitingly I rode it home from work... 40 minutes of pedaling. Who would have thought I'd have it in me after a year of virtually zero physical activity. I was beat all weekend. Of course, those of you who know me will know that I obtained this piece of equipment used from a coworker for a reasonable price... and he threw in a helmet and a lock. Voila! I'm in business just in time for spring.