Half-catalan girls, half-baked boys

Again, this weekend found me braving the mountains – this time both Saturday and Sunday. We stayed overnight at Alain’s (a friend of my host family) apartment. Saturday is my point of interest for this post; Sunday is my point of interest for pictures (will be posted later this week).

So Saturday…we arrived in the mountains and Katelyn, Manon and myself decided that we would go skating together at the arena because it was possible to rent skates. This of course was a high for me, because as most people know skating is a passion of mine – and it all started off particularly well. The downhill spiral of bizarre events began with three French boys who were also skating and happened to decide that they should inform Katelyn and I that they found us to be “très belle”. Out of curiousity because of the whole Pascal and François thing for me and Katelyn respectively, we asked their names. Coincidently, the guy that liked Katelyn’s name was Floriant, while my suitor was named Peter or Pierre…therefore, close but not close enough, first initial only. We politely declined explaining that we were Canadian, and sure enough, their response was that it didn’t matter because Floriant was Italian (I don’t think that was true). So, to try from a different angle, we asked them how old they were – 17 years old only – and then explained we were too old for them. They didn’t believe that we were 20 and 21. And finally, it got downright pathetic, desperate, and just plain weird when they decided to make snowballs with snow they made from the ice and then to smoosh those snowballs in our hair, our face, our necks and random ones thrown at us. And no, I am not making this up…they seriously came up to us and smooshed snowballs in our face – Can you say score? ;) These boys were half-baked.

Later though, it was wonderful when Alain, Marthe, Manon, Katelyn and I went out for dinner in Spain because the mountains are right on the boarder of the two countries. I love Spain in the evening because it is so alive, everyone is out walking around. We went to a little restaurant which was cute except for the fact that it was so smoky and we all left smelling like bleeding ashtrays. But, because I am here to try different things, Katelyn and I decided to be half-catalan girls; we ordered this catalan potato thing and pasta thing as our first course, but settled on sticking with plain old chicken instead of this catalan specialty involving blood for the second course. The catalan potato thing was amazing…it was like mashed/pureed potatoes with cabbage, spices and meat all mixed together. Perhaps appearance wise it wasn’t top notch, but it’s all the same once its in the stomach. The pasta entrée was not as good, but not disgusting. It was noodles, tuna, mayonnaise and onions all together. The chicken was delicious and the meal was followed up with a wonderful ice cream dessert with chocolate. Needless to say, the dessert was an absolute success…the half-catalan thing definitely worked for me especially at 9 euros. Bon profite! (that’s bon appetit in Catalan)…