Cold Snap

It has been unbelievably cold here! At least, it’s unbelievably cold for Girona.  At night for the last ten days or so it has been in the 20s, and the days have been in the 30’s and windy. It even snowed a couple of days!  I’m realizing I didn’t bring warm enough clothes. When you don’t have a car and walk everywhere, this is REALLY cold! (When packing I was thinking it’s not like living in Colorado, but I neglected to take into account the whole walking thing.) The other problem is our heat has not been working since we got back! The realty company that is supposed to take care of these things has not done anything for 5 weeks. We have a space heater to move from room to room with us, but it’s starting to get ridiculous even by Spanish standards that we haven’t heard anything back. At this point it’s probably my fault for not walking over there and wreaking some havoc till they fix it…but I hate doing stuff like that. Ugh.

In other news I started pretty serious Spanish class! It’s two hours a day, four days a week. My class has fifteen people in it, and almost every person is a different nationality (and I’m the only American!) It’s quite the cultural experience! I’ve met some really nice people. It’s an immersion-type class, so only Spanish is spoken. It was pretty daunting at first, but I’m starting to get more comfortable and feel like my comprehension is already getting much better. I have several friends taking a different level class at the same time, so we walk to and from together. So far I am absolutely loving it, and it’s giving me something to focus on and keep busy with. 

2012

Hello and Happy New Year!!!

It’s definitely time or a catch up and an intro to the new year. Last year ended with the rather unexpected folding of Caleb’s team HTC highroad. This was a huge disappointment, not only because HTC was such an incredible cycling team, but also because Caleb was in the middle of his 2 year contract with them. (Neo pros are always given 2 year contracts because the first year of racing in Europe is such a difficult transition, and a second year gives the riders a chance to get results and sign another contract.) After only one year, it’s very hard to sign a new contract. However, we’re very excited that Caleb was able to sign with team SpiderTech powered by C10, a Canadian pro-continental team. We will still be living in Girona, and were able to keep our same apartment. Probably the most exciting thing is that Caleb will be able to race more for himself on this team, and he feels really driven and confident going into this season with pro tour experience.

A highlight for me this year was my brother Matt coming to visit me in Girona while Caleb was racing the Tour of Beijing. Matt had a business trip to Paris, and added a three day visit to Spain at the beginning. We had a blast doing all the “touristy” things I’ve been waiting to do with someone, and eating a ton of good food. Then I spent a couple days in Paris with him before his work schedule got crazy. We were even able to meet up with some old friends there, David and Jozie! I looooved Paris…can’t wait to go there some day with Caleb, and I know Matt was pining for his wife too

We had a really wonderful off season, catching up with both of our families in Texas and Colorado. We were able to spend Thanksgiving in Loveland with my family, and even had Matthew and Lisa Busche drive up from New Mexico! It was really fun having our friends “from Spain” there. We then spent Christmas in Breckenridge with the Fairlys, and spent a week enjoying family time, the incredible scenery and some great skiing.

It’s been especially good getting a few months of almost completely uninterrupted time together…last year we spent over 200 days apart, so it was really good to get that quality time. I think we both feel refreshed and ready for another year of adventures! We’re also excited to get back to Spain because our apartment is there, and it’s nice to have a home after living out of our suitcases for so long. This morning I dropped Caleb off at the airport, and I’ll be joining him on the 12th. I can’t wait to see my Girona friends and for a new season of racing!

enjoying the view from the Eiffel Tower with Matt, David and Jozie

at the world series!!!

skiing with my sis Cait!

with my niece Shannon at "2nd Christmas"

The Orphaned Blog

So my brother Matt has repeatedly told me that I have orphaned my blog. He’s right, it’s really terrible. I haven’t even had it that long! I’ll try and do better Matt! I will!!

Coming back to Girona was so much less stressful this time around. We have an apartment, a bank account, we know where the grocery stores are, and most importantly, we had friends to come home to! What a difference from the first time I arrived, and couldn’t remember two words in Spanish or find a grocery store to save my life.

It’s been a great few weeks catching up with friends and enjoying summer in Spain. Girona is near the Costa Brava, one of the most beautiful coastlines in Spain. I’ve been able to go to the beach several times and enjoy the nice weather and the stunningly beautiful Mediterranean.

Caleb’s cycling has been going really well. If you followed the Tour of Austria, you probably saw he had several days where he was top 20 or 30. He’s definitely been feeling more comfortable with the European racing, with his team, and has been feeling great in training. It’ll be exciting to see how he does in his upcoming races: Tour of Utah Aug. 9-14th and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge (Tour of Colorado) Aug. 22-28. I’ll be at both races (YES!) so I’ll try and give good updates about them. Also, if you’re ever wondering what races Caleb is doing you can check out his website www.calebfairly.com. He also has the occasional blog update on there.

While the guys were riding through the alps at Tour of Austria, Lisa and I went on a little adventure of our own! Our earlier ambitious ideas of Paris or Venice had to be ratcheted down to someplace in Spain haha, but that ended up being just fine. We took a quick train and bus rides to the coast and spent the night in Roses. The first day we went hiking along the coast into the Cap de Creus nature reserve. It was so beautiful…I’ve never seen anything like it, the water was actually turquoise. We even climbed down the rocks and went swimming in our own little Mediterranean cove! That was amazing…at least until Lisa cut her foot on a shell and I got a sea urchin sticker in my foot…but we survived.
The rest of our mini vacation was spent eating great seafood and enjoying the beach. It was so fun experiencing a new part of Spain and getting to know Lisa even better. We found we were pretty good travel buddies, and we’re hoping to do some race following together in the future!

In other news, Caleb’s brother Chase and sister Caitlin came to visit! We had so much fun taking them to all our favorite restaurants, eating gelato, and exploring the old town. Cait is a photographer, and Girona is pretty much a photographer’s dream so we had fun looking for good photo ops. They both did awesome communicating in Spanish and being willing to try anything. One day we rented a car, drove to the beach, and met Caleb for lunch. Then he drove us along the coast on one of his favorite rides. It was beautiful, and so fun to finally see where he goes every day! It was also a victory for me, because I have been irrationally scared of driving here. It wasn’t that bad, glad to get another hurdle out of the way!

We also had some mishaps while the fam was visiting…mainly involving Barcelona. I thought I had figured out the train system well enough, but I was seriously wrong. (I don’t necessarily feel like it was my fault though, I mean, Barcelona didn’t do us any favors when they gave three different stops the same name haha.) Basically we spent a couple hours wandering from metro station to metro station, asking for directions, and getting locked (literally locked) into two different train stations. Our poor guests were troopers…I just kept telling them they were the guinea pigs for all future visitors!

Here’s some photos of the trip to Roses, and I’ll put up some of Cait and Chase’s visit soon after I get pictures from Cait (there’s really no point in putting up any of my photos, you’ll want to see Cait’s! )

Photo Catch-Up

At long last, here is the promised picture update! We are loving being at home and getting to spend time with family and friends. Here are the photos from Liege Bastogne Liege and Can Roca. And the final picture: the very best part of being at home…getting to meet our brand new niece! Congratulations to my brother Matt and his wife Catherine!

Liege, Belgium

Team Presentation at Liege Bastogne Liege

Caleb at the start

Caleb and me at Can Roca

Mark with a fancy dessert

Alex and the crayfish! yikes!

our beautiful niece, Shannon Celeste Trumbo!

Belgium and Stuff

Last weekend I went to Liege, Belgium to watch Caleb race in the historic Liege-Bastogne-Liege. It was a great race to go to not only because it is an incredibly famous, classic race but also because I was able to meet up with Caleb’s father Alex and his friend Mark. It’s always great to watch a race with people who know more than you do about cycling! And of course spending time with Alex is always great. I have fantastic in-laws…just sayin.

I need to spend a moment describing my travel experience because it was kind of epic for a one-night trip. I got up before it was light and made the 20 min walk to the train station in the dark, boarded the train for Barcelona, switched trains to go the airport, took a flight to Charleroi, Brussels, took a bus to the train station, took a train to Liege. I didn’t know which stop to get off at in Liege, so I asked the guy next to me for help. He ended up walking me to the taxi pool (unluckily further away than I was hoping, but thank goodness for kind, not-creepy strangers) and I took a taxi to the hotel. LONG day, and I had to ask for help and directions at almost every stop. I was really relieved to meet up with Alex and Mark, who had a rental car, and just tag along and not make any decisions for the rest of the time.

Watching the race was really cool, it was just such a big, exciting event to be at. It was definitely the biggest race I’ve been to so far. We watched the start of the race in the city center, drove through the beautiful Ardennes and watched the race go by on a climb, and then went to the finish and watched the rest of the race on a megatron. It was a great ending, I hope you were able to catch it on verses (if you like cycling) because it was super exciting. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good day for Caleb because he was really exhausted from a hard schedule. But it was still so cool to be there to support him at his first time at the Ardenne Classics. He’ll be back

After the race we all made late flights back to Spain. We spent Monday and Tuesday showing Alex and Mark around. It felt like we spent most of our time eating (a good choice in girona!) but the guys got some good rides in as well. Alex even took us all to Can Roca, the 2nd best restaurant in the world right now. It was an incredible experience, albeit a bit over our heads haha! But we had an awesome time together with lots of laughing. Can’t wait to show pictures of that crazy food.

Caleb has been recovering the rest of this week, so we haven’t done a whole lot. And now we’re actually getting ready to head back to the US on Monday! I can’t believe how fast this first stint in Spain has gone by. It wasn’t even long enough to get properly homesick. But we’re really excited to see family and friends, and eat Chipotle…oh yeah. I have great pictures of all of this, but I took them on my real camera (instead of my phone) and the camera cord happens to be in CO. I’ll post them soon!

Agua

Realization of the week: I have not valued running water enough in my life. I really thought I did, but I was wrong. A couple years ago I spent three months in Mozambique and our water would go out for 1-3 days at a time, at pretty regular intervals. Even at the best of times, we only flushed our toilets once a day to try and save water so that it wouldn’t run out so often! I was ok with this situation, and had a renewed appreciation for running water when I got home. But there’s something very different about being in Africa, where you sort of constantly expect to be inconvenienced and have planned ahead to have a good attitude, and being at “home” and having the same problem.  Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, the water went out a couple days ago. A workman rang our doorbell (we have yet to figure out why he rang our door and not anyone else in the building) and Caleb went downstairs to talk to him. When Caleb came back up, he said the only word he understood was “agua.”  So we tried the water, and it was a trickle. No big deal, I figured they would work on it and turn it on later that day, but we waited (both of us nice and sweaty after working out) and waited, and nothing happened. I talked to neighbors and the shop owners below us, and no knew what was going on. (This is when we realized the only person the workman had spoken with was Caleb! great!) Not only that, everyone was supremely unconcerned about the whole thing. Oh Spain!

(As a side note, that shop owner asked me if I was “la mujer del ciclista.” The cyclist’s woman? Really? Maybe it’s not as weird in Spanish.)

The next day Caleb left again, and our house was pretty ripe smelling. I was not a happy camper. “What if the water never comes on? What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to talk to??” I said to him while I freaked out a little, picturing a bathroom overflowing with sewage and me wandering around the city government buildings plaintively crying “no hay agua! ayudame!” I’m just kidding, but really what do you do? I still don’t know. Luckily that workman came back and of course, rang my doorbell. I went down, hopefully asked him if he was turning on the water, and he said yes! I rushed back upstairs, flushed the toilet a million times and started washing the dishes. Then he rang the doorbell AGAIN. This time I got a complicated description of why he had to turn the water off again! He knew I wasn’t getting all of it, (my Spanish classes never covered plumbing, my bad) so finally he just said “if I leave this water on the whole world will flood!” Evidently the solution to dealing with a stupid American is extreme exaggeration. He then asked if I would explain the situation to the rest of the building and I said absolutely not. I told him the owner lived above me and got out of there to finish washing my dishes before the “world flooded.”

In conclusion! I have no idea what really happened. The water was off for the rest of the day, but came on again at night. And that is all I know. There has been no flooding, so far. But if there ever is, I doubt anyone but the stupid American on the third floor will be concerned.

Barcelona, Fun Facts, and a 10k

The final stage of Volta Catalunya was in Barcelona, so I decided to head down and try to watch it. I was a little nervous to try out the train and subway systems for the first time, but it turns out it’s pretty simple and a friend helped me figure out directions beforehand. I came out of the subway near the coast, and headed toward the course. Barcelona is beautiful! I can’t wait to go back to do some real sightseeing. But today bike racing was the goal! I stopped at a cafe to get a bite to eat, thinking I was somewhere near the loop the racers would take and I wouldn’t accidentally miss the race. (Very precise thinking I know, but I haven’t yet mastered the art of finding the perfect location for race viewing.) Somehow, I accidentally placed myself in the middle of the circuit route (which was like a figure eight) and instead of seeing Caleb and the peloton go by a measly four times, I saw them twice each lap! Pretty awesome. I met up with Caleb after the race, and found out he had crashed early on. He was ok, thank goodness. Just a couple spots of road rash and some good bruising. I’m relieved I didn’t see the actual crash, but am bracing myself for the fact that eventually, I probably will. Aside from the crashing, it was a really fun day in Barcelona.

This week has been wonderful having Caleb home and in recovery mode. We got to spend a lot of time together. It was great because aside from a quick trip home next Sunday, he’ll be gone for almost three weeks. Saturday he left for Pais Vasco so everyone tune in and cheer him on! You can watch it live and check updates and results here: http://www.steephill.tv/vuelta-al-pais-vasco/

I’ve compiled a few more random facts about living in Spain. 1) Going out to lunch is a big deal, and it is very long. It generally involves three courses, wine, cafe con leche, and lasts for hours. Some friends and I spent 3 hours at a cafe the other day, and when we asked for the check our waiter teased for being in a rush! 2) People are aggressive and 3) have a different sense of personal boundaries. When you’re walking down the street, you have to sort of plow into crowds or you’ll never make it anywhere. I realized after awhile that I was sort of hopping around, trying to get out of people’s way and let them by. That does not work. You have to pick a line, and stick to it. At the last minute people will shift over just enough to let you by, and if they don’t, you just have to be braced to take a shoulder. It’s pretty funny sometimes. The older ladies with their carts are the scariest, they’ll bowl you right over. Standing in line is another great example. In the mercadonas everybody stands right up behind you, breathing down your neck and waiting for you to make a mistake and get distracted. Then they’ll swoop past you to the checkout! …That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but they do stand right up against you and look for excuses to cut. Oh and people get INTENSE in the bakeries! After many trips where I waited patiently for someone to help me, I’ve finally learned to step in front, put up my hand, and say “ME! I am next! Right HERE!” The Catalans are serious about their grocery shopping, and I have no idea why in such a chill culture. Maybe they’re all late for a three hour lunch.

Last but not least, Lisa (who was a college runner, and who makes it into every blog now because she is awesome) asked me if I wanted to run a 10k yesterday. I’ve been running lately, but not that far! As a side note, I finally realized I just don’t have the discipline to make myself exercise consistently or hard enough, so I asked Caleb to be my personal trainer…haha. Slightly dangerous I know, but it’s been really great. He’s encouraging, and I just needed that extra push to know that there’s an expectation that I will get my workout done while he’s on his ride. Anyway, running in public is nerve wracking for me. But I figured I might as well try it, and lo and behold I actually finished. Not only was it the longest distance I’ve ever run (sad I know, but you gotta start somewhere!) but it was our first “international” race, and my first race anywhere/ever. What a great experience!