One month down!

I am jumping the gun by a couple of days, but I have declared one month in the books for my travel!  With only three weeks on the calendar until Jessica comes to visit for the first time, I feel like I've conquered a fairly significant hurdle in being away from home and now have many things to look forward to in the coming weeks and months!

Here in Spain, things continue to go well at work.  I am starting to contribute (at least I think I am, maybe others don't!) on the projects I've been assigned, and feel I actually make a difference by being here.  It is interesting to see the interface between the two sites and I very much enjoy seeing the engineering process in Spain after learning the same in Clayton over the past few years.  My Spanish is still a BIG work in progress, but after four classes, I feel I've taken in a lot of information and remember a fair amount.  I am really anticipating large gains in the next month or so once I can hammer on the basics for a while.

During the past week, I found a great wood-fired pizza place in Granollers and ate dinner there.  The pizza matches the style of a place like Brixx, with the blistered crispy crust and thin middle, but exceeded any effort I've had in the States with delicious, fresh toppings and LOADS of topping choices.  Ever adventurous, I went with the simple pizza margherita (even if they used sauce instead of tomato slices) and loved it.  Excluding the exquisite greasy, New York style pies that are my favorite (Randy's in North Carolina, for instance), this was probably as good a pizza as I've had.  As an added bonus, I met a guy from Australia and discussed sports and American politics (which I know NOTHING about) with him for a while.  Sometimes it is just nice to be able to carry a normal conversation in English here!

Our work team had another basketball game on Friday, which we inexplicably lost.  Our team has two players, both of whom missed the first game I played, that are REALLY good.  They are both about my height, can dunk, and have great shooting form.  While the one went cold in the second half, I have no doubt that they would have been the best players at my high school and maybe even could have snuck into a smaller college to try to play.  Again, how we lost the game is a mystery to me... I really believe the score may have been wrong because play was so one-sided.

Yesterday, I traveled with the other American here to Sabadell (another Spanish city outside of Barcelona) for lunch and walking with a friend from work and her son.  The lunch was unbelievably good (pictures, of course, on Instagram), as I had beef carpaccio and pig trotter with potatoes.  I have really enjoyed Spain's use of non-standard food and try my best to taste these options when they exist.  The pig trotter (pig foot) was braised to amazing tenderness and coated in a rich, flavorful sauce that was perfectly executed in taste and consistency.  It had one of the deepest flavors I've ever tried in a sauce; its color made me think of the pressed duck sauce I saw on Food Channel once, although the flavor was obviously pork and not duck here.  The meat itself had a slightly odd consistency (I loved it but my wife would NOT), with meat and fat mixed throughout in a non-uniform manner.  Overall though, this dish will be one I always remember and hope to find again!

The town of Sabadell was very nice; it is a city on its own but small enough to feel manageable while still having plenty of activity.  I felt it was a bit "nicer" than Granollers, where I live, as the streets were wider and had more trees along them.  It is similar though, and continues the trend I've seen here where there are several true cities acting as the suburbs to Barcelona.  In North Carolina, the areas surrounding Raleigh (Cary, Clayton, Wake Forest, etc.) aren't nearly (or at all) as urban as the "suburbs" here so the feel is quite different.  I see benefits to both but comparing directly is far too hard with the age difference (decades in America versus centuries here!).

This week, I have off on Tuesday for Spanish Labor Day (I'll give it back on America's Labor Day when you all are at home and I am at work) and will continue training for the half-marathon in Raleigh when I return in October (the race is in November I believe).  My ankle has started to feel better with more range of motion, although it still is sore after working out.  Most importantly, Jessica will be here in three weeks and I cannot wait to show her Barcelona and all of the surrounding areas!