28.03 - Sunday - from Benidorm

As every year there was a huge mess on my part related to the time change. I had only my phone - which I did not trust to do the time change automatically (and then my computer confused me as well since had forgotten it to Estonian time so it differed from my phone time.. uh oh). Anyways - huge confusion, but all turned out for the best in the end. The plan was to stop by triathletes housing and head over to swim practice. Ended up having famous pancakes (famous rightly so) and then headed out to the practice just like planned. It was refreshing to swim :) More updated on the training camp and more check-ups :)

Goodbyes to triathletes, met up with my travel companions and back towards Barcelona we headed - me behind the wheel. Took us about 5 hours of driving and 1 hour of going around in circles and arguing about the usefulness of GPS devices :-S Best part of all was the wonderful discussions with my friend :), I've missed those! Really enjoyed the drive and the chat - one can never have too many friends with whom to discuss about the world matters for hours without once getting bored :D I'd come back for a visit just for the talks at anytime!

Arrived to Barcelona, one crankier than the other (except me of course :) ), one hungrier than the other (especially me of course ;) ). Dropped off the car, dropped of the packages at the apartment and headed to regular midnight dinner :D at the Japanese buffet place.

Now let's talk about food :) Local specialties I got to try out were:
Pa amb tomaquet - roasted white bread with olive oil and garlic rubbed with tomato. This is how the locals eat bread here, none of this buttery stuff.
Paella - those come in many different variations, the one I ate was 'paella valenciana', it is the original version with chicken and seafood.
Tapas - all kinds of little snacks like meat, sausages, bread, fish served with oils and herbs. One must have is 'patatas bravas' - potato chunks in spicy tomato sauce.
From deserts - Crema Catalana - Catalan version of creme brulee, it is a rich eggy custard with a caramelized sugar topping, YUM!
Then of course 'cava' - sparkling wine made the same way as French champagne and sangria. Sangria is everywhere and is served throughout the day like lemonade.
Another wonderful food experience was definitely the Japanese buffet place we visited in Barcelona - it was grand. You just picked whatever you liked from the menu and everything was served to the table nice and quick. That was really neat as the food was superb. Haven't eaten that much sushi total in my whole life :)

27.03 - Saturday - to Benidorm

One of the purposes of my Spain trip was to visit my students and friends in Benidorm while they are in their spring training camp pushing their bodies to the limits by getting through unbelievable amount of training hours every day. As their practice was ending around 1pm anyways we weren't gonna hurry a whole lot. Ate breakfast - I had absolutely the best croissant in the world that morning and then headed out of town towards Benidorm. Took a bit over an hour, or was it 1.5 hours, either way not a whole lot.

Ended up spending the whole time in Benidorm with my students. Weather was nice and warm, the sun was out and life was just beautiful. Lots of information had to be exchanged, status updates told, training plans reviewed, future plans discussed, next training camp to be planned ;), experiences to be shared and so on and so on. One student had swimming so figured to go and check out the facilities here, perhaps should attend one swim practice myself :) Either way, club crowd took good care of me the whole time. Training camp is going as planned and even better than expected (or should I say fared?). In the evening the whole club crowd, and friends, got together and we went out to eat. It was truly wonderful, wonderful to spend time with students, with other club members and friends. Good times!

My travel companions had been resting the whole time so it was time for them to start the evening. Stopped by for half and hour, wished them the best time of their life and headed to the hostel. Heard the next morning that their evening went till 6am and apparently Benidorm is THE place for partying. I simply can't believe how they manage to party every single night :) I definitely needed to get my beauty sleep :)