There is a secret time here in Barcelona

It's usually near the end of August when most people are smart enough to leave the smoldering heat of the inner city and head for the beach and enjoy summer... The streets are significantly more empty than normally especially up town. It's quite the peculiar thing as many shops simply just close down for 4 weeks and happy announce they'll be back after their holidays. It's funny because in one way the city empties out and then in another way the floods of French tourists arrive. This year because of the delicate economic climate there are lots of Frenchies, a few Italians but very few northern Europeans and even less Americans... But the beautiful thing about remaining in Barcelona during the summer is that for a small few moments you feel the city is just a little bit more 'yours' than it normally is. I suppose that because all of the locals are gone (or it feels like they are) that you are the closest thing to being a local... makes you feel kind of like for once you maybe fit in.

The morning bus rides to work will soon return to normal... the darkness is slowly creeping back into my morning routine. The alarm goes off at half six but my brain is not quite ready to compute the fact that it's starting to still be dark then. Work is sufficiently manic to make the hours in the day zoom by. In fact last week I felt like I looked up from my desk and it was Thursday already!

The impending baby rush is a pink one. Miss Vero and Miss Karen are both having little girls. To say I'm thrilled for them both is an understatement. Now if we can just bear the wait until seestor and bryan have theirs in Dec we can try for a hattrick... but they like the surprise and are thus going to wait to see if they too have a girl.

We ventured out very early yesterday morning with the ever enthusiastic Chiara and Nacho egging us on to be brave and actually atempt a day at the beach out of town. We were at the train at 8am to head off to the costa brava. We trained and bused it and then bused it some more and we arrived to Cala de Sant Francesc at around half ten. What a lovely place. It boggles the brain as to how much money you would need to have one of the massive houses that shroud the cala. It's really lovely and we had a fabulous day. Bravo to them for helping us make it possible with all the baby acutraments that we need to have with us to allow us to be away from home. It's not a trip for the faint hearted... and the transportation system isn't too sympathetic to people with baby prams but with 4 people we did it! And for the record... all those locals that are missing from Barcelona... they were all in Blanes. I think we were the only foreigners there!
Cala de San Francesc - trust me there were many more people there!