Girona this weekend.

For my birthday, Jose surprised me with a trip to Girona. He got a RyanAir special for 1 cent each, leaving from Madrid on Saturday at 12.50 and returning on Sunday at 6.35 am. So, we packed sandwiches and muffins, drove our car to the airport, and flew to Girona, about an hour from Barcelona. You can see the pictures!

Maybe it's coming from Toledo, but everything seemed so clean and inhabitant friendly. The city is full of new buildings and styles, fun bars and cafes and charming bridges that cross the river. The streets were crowded with a small amount of tourists and lots of Catalan. I felt like I had just arrived in a new country, when someone said something basic, and I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. It's overwhelming, but fun.


The biggest surprise happened on the way to the airport at 5 am. We were sitting on the shuttle bus and next to us were two people who worked for RyanAir. They were speaking together and I heard bits of their conversation: "semmit" and "nem tudom" and other pieces that identified them as Hungarian! Hungarians! Sitting next to me on the shuttle bus in Girona! So, I asked them, in my best Hungarian, if they were Magyar...and after a brief, confused look they said that they were. So, after switching into English (I forgot how well they spoke English), I told them all about living in Hungary, meeting Jose, and how I LOVED it. I think I looked a little crazy, because they weren't too excited to continue talking about how wonderful it was. Maybe I didn't explain myself well or maybe it was just 5 o'clock in the morning. But, even though they were a little less than friendly, it still made my morning to have met Hungarians in Spain and spent a little time thinking about my first foreign love.

We flew back to Madrid as the sun was coming up, drove back home and took a long nap. What a great weekend!