Saludos desde Barcelona!

"Greetings from Barcelona"

We are here, we are safe, we are already having fun! I think I may try to do this post day by day to try to keep it organized, starting with the day we flew out of Indianapolis.

• Wednesday, July 28 - Our taxi came to pick us up around 12:30 pm and our flight from Indy to Philly was at 3:00 pm. As usual, the airport was not very busy and security check was very fast. Both Ryan and I had to go in the 'body scanner'; a first for me. Ryan's company was nice enough to allow us to fly business class, though on our smaller planes there was no such thing. All of our flights were excellent...even the landings were smooth. On our flight from Philly to Madrid (our business class flight) we sat two and two: Alexis and me in front and Ryan and Kaylee behind us. We didn't do much sleeping, other than through breakfast. Alexis did a lot better on this flight than our last international flight. She actually ate her meal and didn't seem nervous at all. It was almost like a slumber party because we stayed up late talking :) The only rough parts of our flight was when Kaylee couldn't figure out how to get out of the restroom. She was very scared and almost screaming. But she wasn't very far away and Ryan got to her really quickly. After a hug she was fine.
• Thursday, July 29 - This is the day that Alexis's nerves began to kick in. Honestly, mine did as well, though I think the lack of sleep had a lot to do with it. We had a layover in Madrid and tried to eat some breakfast since we slept through the breakfast service on the plane. The food was not really that great, but it was better than nothing. Of course Alexis didn't eat anything. We mostly tried to sleep on our SpanAir flight from Madrid to Barcelona. We arrived at BCN around 8:30 am (2:30 am, Indiana time) and waited on our luggage. Kaylee's booster seat never showed up and we eventually had to leave in a taxi without it. Alexis started getting carsick in the taxi on the way to our home here, but the taxi driver turned the air on full blast and she eventually felt better. Luckily, our house is only about 20-30 minutes from the airport. Once we got home, we got in the pool and just tried to relax. To help with the transition, all four of us slept in the girls' room.
• Friday, July 30 - Originally, we had planned on just taking it easy, but I had to get Alexis focused on something other than her new surroundings and being away from home. So I had her help me go through all the rooms and make a list of things that we needed. A first step in the right direction. Then she and Ryan decided that they wanted to go to IKEA after all and start getting some of the things on our list. We spent over 5 hours there, but I'm happy to report that I think we have all the furniture that we are going to need! We brought a few of the things home, but most of it we set up to be deliverd on the following Monday.
• Saturday, July 31st and Sunday, August 1st - Saturday and Sunday we spent most of the day working on the girls' playroom (the top floor) and their bedroom. I think Sunday evening was the first night the girls slept in their room by themselves. By Sunday, Alexis was feeling much better about the situation, she had started eating almost normally again. I think getting her focused on specific tasks so she wasn't over thinking things was a very smart thing to do. She helped me build some of the furniture we brought home from IKEA and she really enjoyed herself. At this point though, she still was pretty uncomfortable leaving the house. She didn't even want to play on the playground or go to the beach. We eventually ventured out to get me a cell phone and to grab some groceries and some dinner. We tried a Japanese restaurant close to the beach. It was pretty good, we've had better though. We also had our own church service Sunday morning. We read some bible verses, devotionals, and the one of the girls' Sunday school lessons. Then at dinner that evening we had communion.
• Monday-Thursday, August 2nd - 5th - Ryan went back to work on Monday, but he came home in time to greet the IKEA delivery team. I still wasn't quite comfortable directing in spanish...honestly my spanish is not very good and I am in desperate need of practice! So, while Ryan was working during the week, I spent most of my time building furniture - sometimes with little helpers - and cleaning. You would not believe the amount of dust everywhere! We had to make an extra grocery trip because I ran out of cleaning supplies. But the house is looking quite nice now with all the furniture and cleanliness. At least we can finally walk on most of the marble floors without need to wear shoes. Now when you walk on them barefoot, your feet squeak on the floor. I guess that means the floors are squeaky clean! I've also cleaned the pool a couple of times. But our terrace tiles are still quite dusty and they get really slippery when they're wet. So, we've cleaned them off several times and they are slowly getting better. Every day, Alexis kept feeling better and better about our surroundings. We eventually made it to the beach for a walk in the sand. Alexis and I put our feet in the water. It was on a day when the water was quite choppy, so the sea was beautiful. The girls also played on the playground and Alexis rediscovered her love for climbing the trees there.
• Friday, August 6th - My work load was beginning to lighten quite a bit, so the girls and I took part of the day to play on the playground. That evening when Ryan got home from work, we headed to downtown Barcelona and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. We had to wait for 45 minutes for our table so we took a very short walk to Fraggio's...a gelateria and cafe. The girls each got a pre-dinner vanilla ice cream cone, I got a cafe latte, and Ryan got a beer. We absolutely loved the Hard Rock. The girls both got Twisted Mac n' Cheese and loved watching the music videos. Another thing we all liked about downtown BCN was that there were a lot more people speaking English. All the wait staff at the Hard Rock spoke English. I think the girls felt really comfortable there. It was a fun evening for sure.
• Saturday, August 7th (yesterday) - We finally got moving around 11:00 am. We needed to go to the post office to pick up the title to Bubbles (that's the name of our car here). Then the girls wanted to go to El Corte Ingles close to Ryan's office to look at their school uniforms. I had bought them several pieces from Old Navy already, but the uniforms at ECI were actually monogrammed with BSB - British School of Barcelona. We definitley needed to get them their gym clothes, but we also go them each a polo in navy and red and a skirt in navy and beige. We also were able to find Alexis a pair of navy shoes. Those six outfits and one pair of shoes cost more than the 12 outfits I had gotten them at Old Navy! After uniform shopping, we went to our favorite japanese restaurant. The girls each got Yaki Tori and Fanta Limon, Ryan and I got Unagi Don and Sake. Delicious!!! It's a nice quiet little restaurant. After dinner they brought the girls a wooden fan to keep and some candy and some after dinner drinks. It was a apple type schnapps, but they also brought a sin alcohol version out for the girls. And we drank the drinks out of little tiny cups. It was fun! After lunch we went to Carrefour (like a Wal-Mart supercenter) and did some grocery shopping. It was after 5:00 pm when we got home. But we relaxed a little bit, cooked and ate some dinner, then went to play on the playground. After playing on the playground a while, we decided to go to the beach to get some ice cream and coffee. It was a 2 mile walk round trip but it was worth it. The scenery is just lovely and the weather is to die for! We stopped at the playground on the way home and then played some Skip-bo before the girls went to bed.

Some quick observations:

• There are a lot of completely naked children on the beach...up to about 7 years old I would say.
• There are a lot of dogs everywhere. Not strays, but with their owners even in the stores. We saw two dogs in El Corte Ingles.
• The motorcycles are crazy here! Weaving through traffic and coming up along side your car on the highway...scary!
• The scenery here is beautiful: Sea and beach on one side, Mountains and Castles on the other....lots of tall buildings and we haven't even seen the Gaudi area yet!
• We are very thankful for the Disney Channel. It is the only local station in english.
• Skype is a wonderful tool!

Well, that's all for now. I will come back later and post the pictures I have taken so far. Though I haven't been very good at remembering to take my camera with me. I'll try to do better.