Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

There are five days in the work week. Well, not this week, because Tuesday is a holiday, and Monday is a puente, so there are only really three work days this week… but I digress. So there must be five new videos of Sebastian added to the interwebs. There simply must. Let’s get this thing started the only way we really know how: yodeling.

We went out to La Floresta today for an amazing curry lunch at Alex and Nadia’s house (homegrown hot peppers and homemade ginger chutney!), followed by a fun little evening Halloween party in a playground/plaza just down the hill from the town center. Emily was a cat and Sebastian was Bob The Builder. Jan was a witch and I was a hippie. There were a few dozen other people there, all dressed up. After setting the clocks back an hour just last night, the party got dark rather quickly. The jack-o-lanterns looked awesome.

It got to the point where no one could see what exactly they were grabbing from the snacks table. I used my phone to light my way to the “arm” cake and “blood” juice. Jan came up to me and said, “Have you tried these crisps? They’re really stale and really dry. But there’s a peanut in the middle of each one. Here try one.” And she put one in my mouth. She was right: it tasted stale and dry. And there was a peanut in the middle! Wait a minute… “You idiot, those are peanuts!” I groaned to Jan as I began spitting out the remaining pieces of peanut shell that were stuck in my teeth. I don’t know how many Jan had already eaten at this point. We shared a good laugh before Jan pointed out that Emily was still eating them. It was time to go home.

Hey, wanna see the lovely photos I took in Perpignan in July of last year?

In The Heights

Yes, I know. That was 15 months ago! I am equally mortified that my photo uploading has actually been lapped by the calendar year. But I am making a concerted effort to catch up. Here is the beginning of that effort.

Taking advantage of the fact that the school year had ended and that Spain was in the finals of the World Cup, my buddy Joe decided to pop over to Barcelona for a visit. Once Spain was victorious and the football festivities had subsided, we rented a car and drove up to the Perpignan region of southern France to go wine tasting and castle hunting. Fun!

Perpignan had a lovely rustic and quaint feel to it and provided plentiful outdoor restaurants for our dining enjoyment. But we spent most of our three days outside of the city, driving around the verdant hills of the region, exploring lost and decrepit Cathar castles, discovering picturesque little villages hidden away in the sprawling French Pyrenees mountains, putting to good use our appalling French, and sampling more than our fair share of the delicious local wines. We concluded our trip with an intimate guided tour of a local vineyard, owned and run by a very friendly couple from England, who lived in New York before moving to Australia and ending up in France. If you’re ever in the area, do stop by for a tour and tasting.

If you’d like to view a smattering of the photos from our adventure, just click on the following link and be whisked away: