Daycare for a Day

It’s been quite a week. Our final houseguests have come and gone.  Our good friends, Jamie and Alexei and their two kids came on Sunday and left this morning.  We all toured Camp Nou (FC Barcelona’s stadium) on Sunday, and then Alec and I launched into a heavy work week.  Alec gave two talks yesterday, and I have a deadline for a paper I’m working on with Manuel.  Unfortunately, the kids’ school has finished, and no camps start until next week.  A major market failure, in my opinion.  So I took the bull by the horns and emailed a few other families I knew to see if we could arrange some childcare swaps.  In the end, the kids went to one family on Monday, another on Tuesday, and were watched by our babysitter yesterday.  Today I have five of them here together.  At first I thought I might take them to the science museum or the aquarium.  But then the idea of getting so many kids to and from anyplace seemed overwhelming, so I decided to base our day at home.  We watched some Tom and Jerry, spent an hour or so in the park, made mosaics with bottle caps, had lunch, made cookies, and are now watching a movie.  I’m hoping Alec is home by the time it’s done so that I can slip out to a yoga class.

Last night Alec had a dinner, and Jamie, Alexei and I went to check out Ferran Adria’s new tapas and cocktail bar, 41˚, in Poble Sec.  Jamie and I drank a rose cava, while Alexei had a couple of martinis.  And we snacked.  On beautifully presented “liquid” olives, and liquid pistachios, little brioches stuffed with truffled cheese, flavorful mini tacos encased in a light and crispy wrap.  And oysters—amazing oysters in a miso black garlic sauce.  Then blackcurrant profiteroles filled with yogurt, and chocolate bonbons, for dessert.  Everything was special, some things a little weird, all bursting with flavor.  I have to admit that I left a little hungry—you have to eat a whole lot (and spend a whole lot) to call it dinner.  But I would go back.

And now we are in the home stretch—we leave Barcelona next Friday, and in the meantime have to pack up boxes to send back to the US—at home and at our offices—and pack up our car for the six week road trip we’ve planned.  We have to say goodbye to people, and finish our work.  We will be back on the other end, for a few days in August, so there will be a little time to do the things we have not gotten around to.  The kids have camp next week, so we’ll have a little space and time for getting things done, and to do what it takes to drive away.