07 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in Travel
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The hematoma didn’t dissolve. Msrs. Black and Decker were summoned. McDreamy approached the project with the enthusiasm of Bob the Builder fresh from a clearance sale at Lowe’s. The incision exceeds two feet in length; there are forty-one staples. Half of my skull was removed. It’s a good thing chain saws weren’t on sale.
06 Monday May 2013
Posted in Travel
I open my eyes to a Niagara of gauzy pastel blues and yellows, softly waving in the air. Appropriately, a waterfall of cacophonous Catalan chatter sprays my ears. I am entangled by intubation.
It is visiting hour at Josep Trueta hospital in Girona, Spain, where I am awaiting the prognosis of what has initially been diagnosed as a subdural hematoma, which is doc-talk for a clot of blood under the dura mater that covers my brain. The pressure is incessant. There is pain. They conduct a CT scan and tell me clot is the size of a deck of cards.
03 Friday May 2013
The l’Escala waterfront, ca. 1966. Credit: Restaurant Cal Galan.
Last week we took a 45-minute, rather glam bus ride from Girona to the old fishing village of L’Escala on the coast of the Mediterranean. On a previous brief visit, we were captivated by the charm of the old village, the 45 miles of shoreline around the Bay of Roses, and some very intimate little restaurants that called our name.
22 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
I’m a Portland, Oregon native. Some say Portland is among the five best places to live in the world. Others say it’s where young people go to retire. That’s fine, but that’s not what Portland is all about. Portland is all about beer.
20 Saturday Apr 2013
Posted in Travel
Those of you who read last year’s April in France blog will remember that Tom is a four-year-old in spirit. For example, every time a train goes by our Girona apartment, he points at it and yells “TRAIN!” If he’s really lucky it will be a “CAR TRAIN!” saddled with Seats.
18 Thursday Apr 2013
16 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Travel
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Our friends Jeannette and Vicens took us out on another well-planned, beauty-soaked adventure to the Costa Brava Saturday night.
13 Saturday Apr 2013
11 Thursday Apr 2013
09 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Travel
Nothing could have prepared me for Catalan. Well, maybe my sixty years of French study and forty years of Spanish study and those two miserable years of Latin. But the Catalan independence movement around here has become so fierce that the signs and menus are no longer bilingual in Catalan and Castilian Spanish, as they were just last year. It’s all Catalan, all the time.
The Expat Almanac 