Livin It Up at the Hotel... Golf Costa Brava

I have been keeping myself busy in Spain hanging out at Hotel Golf Costa Brava. In exchange for hosting me I have been working on a blog for the hotel. It was so cool of the director, Albert, to let me stay here that I was happy to do whatever I could to get the place some attention. I like supporting good people in their business. I hope by writing the blog for the hotel I'll encourage other people to do the same.

Aside from life at the hotel, I have managed to get around town a bit. Jordi has carted me a few places and invited me along on a couple boat trips. His friend Jan has a small boat one town over in Sant Feliu de Guixols. Jan is a super nice guy who is doing waaaay better at learning a second language that I am. Earlier this year he didn't know a word of English. He went to England for 4 months and can now converse quite well. He was happy to have me to practice with and I was happy I didn't have to try and speak Spanish!

I actually told myself I would study Spanish the whole time I was in Europe. Not only useful in Spain, I decided after I visited Puerto Rico a while back that if I ever want to live anywhere warm, I should learn the language. Turns out, traveling with people who speak Danish, Swedish, French and Polish - and visiting a new country every few days where even other languages are spoken - does NOT make me want to try and concentrate on Spanish! On top of that, here on the East Coat of Spain the main language is Catalan, so my brain could not be more confused. Everyday my friend Carlos, the hotel's chef, tries to chat with me. He speaks Spanish, and while I am grateful for his friendship, our conversations are ridiculous. If it weren't for hand gestures and laughing, we wouldn't have much to communicate at all.

I don't know if the timing was coincidental or not, but the day after the verdict of the Zimmerman trial was announced, Carlos asked me "Philadelphia, mucho violencia?" I responded with "Sí", and it made me very sad. I have been to a lot of towns in the past couple months. The city girl in me is always on the look out for situations and places that don't seem safe. Back in Prague I started to wonder if I was cautious or paranoid. Do people here constantly scan the scene around them? because I keep doing it and finding no threat. Here I was, weeks later, again feeling safe and secure in my surroundings, struggling to chat with my new friend about anything we could understand with our limited common verbal ground, and we met in the middle over the violence in my home town. Don't get me wrong, I know there are far worse places in the world. It's just that when you are used to hearing about cars being broken into, people being robbed, gunfire in the hood, all happening on a daily basis, it becomes somewhat normal. Then when you're away from it for a while, and someone from a different continent points it out, you realize just how obviously abnormal it should be.

Anywhoooo, here are a couple pics of fun in Spain. There will be more coming, but others will be popping up on the hotel's blog over the next 4 months or so. They will be brief posts about the hotel and ventures I took while staying there. You can check it out at HGCBblog.wordpress.com

A blindingly sunny boat ride with Jordi and Jan.

A sweet spot to anchor.

A couple of cuties I had the pleasure of meeting one 

night. I've had almost no time with fuzzy ones in ages... 

was happy when this little guy jumped right in my lap!

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of this 

one's haircut!

Mi amigo Carlos.

CRACK! Ahhhhhh

So before I even got to Spain it was clear to me that Jordi was one of the nicest, most helpful people ever. First he talked to his friend about hosting me, then he offered to pick me up from the airport. Meanwhile, you might remember that not long before I headed to Spain my back went haywire. After some R+R in Brussels I was still in really bad shape. I had to email Jordi and Albert, my host, that I wasn't capable of doing a whole lot at the moment. We hadn't discussed exactly what kind of work I would be doing at the hotel, but I figured it would be some kind of physical labor, which there was no chance my back would agree to.

Albert responded by saying I should show up and consider myself a friend. Sleep in the next day, take it easy. Not only that, when I mentioned I would need to pick up an ice pack, he had one waiting for me when I arrived. I felt like such a jerk. Here was a total stranger doing me all kinds of favors and I was in too much pain to do anything in return. The next day, I said I thought I should see a chiropractor and Albert immediately made a phone call that lead to an appointment in 20 minutes - which, you guessed it, he drove me to.

Now, turned out this person wasn't a chiropractor but a massage therapist. I was doubtful it would be much help but after an hour I got up and walked away feeling a hell of a lot better. I was walking almost normally - it was so exciting! $40 euros well spent! I toured the town, found some seitan at the grocery store, and returned to the hotel with lifted spirits.

Sadly, a lot of my relief wore off by the time I went to bed :( The next day all I could muster the energy for was a walk around the hotel grounds, shooting some photos and a little drawing. Maybe I could contribute some artwork to the hotel...

Andy and his family had gotten to Costa Brava by now and were staying a couple of towns over on the beach. Yet another stroke of mad luck came when Andy told me his brother-in-law is not only a chiropractor, but just happens to be the guy who takes care of the Swedish Olympic Ski Team, and he'd be happy to take a look at my back. Are you kidding me - what are the odds?? As you can imagine, I didn't hesitate to take him up on his offer. Turns out Janne is a genius! He worked on me for about 20 minutes and I felt immediate relief. The best part was he even identified the root of my problem and gave me a stretching routine to keep up on my own. Janne - you rock!

By now, Albert had suggested I could help out with the social media for Hotel Golf Costa Brava. That, I could do! Finally, I had some mobility and a way to contribute. Maybe now I could start enjoying my time in Spain!

Neo, Jordi's puppy. I helped him take Neo to the vet one night...
he weighs 68 kilos. That's 150 pounds. That's somewhere around
40 lbs more than me... Good thing he is a sweet pooch! I have
never seen more slobber in my life!

A day at the beach, a night on the rocks... with Pernilla!

Obama, Elvis Presley... according to the home stores in
Spain - this is where it's at!

Hola España

Wow, I've already been in Spain over a week and the time is flying by.

I came here in quite a round about way. When I realized we would have 

a 3 week break between King Diamond shows my first thought was 

"why go to Philly when I can go to Spain?!" 

Of course, in vacation mode that would be mucho expensive, so I 

started looking at other alternatives. I began poking around the web for woofing opportunities and found a site called workaway.org. I loved it - it listed all kinds of hosts and you could search by country, region, and type of work. The basic idea is a host offers you meals and a place to stay in exchange for about 25 hours of work a week. It's most often in someone's home, or a hostel and the work can be any number of tasks, but a lot revolve around green living, working with natural materials, and building eco retreats. I ran across a lot of listings saying they needed help with art projects as well. The search was on! If I could find everything I wished for it would be working on an art project, living on an eco farm, near the beach! A girl can dream, right?

My search started months before the tour. Some places said they were booked already, some said to get back to them when it was closer to July, and most didn't write back at all. What the hell people - how hard is it to say no thanks? I finally got the go ahead from an artist, living in a tiny town in Valencia, to come stay with her. I started to get really excited. We were chatting along well over email and she sounded fun. My meals would not be included but she was vegetarian and up for splitting the cost of food and cooking together. We were buzzing about making plans when all of a sudden she had to cancel. Due to a family issue that did not sound fun at all, she had to go to Madrid and couldn't say exactly when she'd be back. Pfffffftttt. Now what?

So, for some reason I have never really taken advantage of the fact that I
know a lot of people, many with connections to all kinds of other people.
I think I need to start tapping into my resources more! With about 2 weeks
to go til the break and nowhere to go, I mentioned to Andy that my
accommodations had fallen through. He and the fam were actually headed
to Spain for some of the break too, so we had been saying all along that it
would be cool if we could meet up down there. So low and behold, Andy has
a friend named Jordi, (who I met before in 2006) who has a friend, who has a hotel…
the volunteer for room and board idea was proposed and BAM!
I had a place to stay! I booked my flight to Girona and set my sights on Spain!

Remember kids, you can "Follow" this blog in the upper right of the page so you never miss a beat :)

My Catalonian home away from home. 

Hotel Golf Costa Brava

Cheers to Andy for getting the ball rolling!