Thursday, August 20th - Mataro, Spain

This relaxing and being lazy is getting very habit forming.  However, I think my body has gone into rejection mode.  I am stiff and sore and can barely walk at times.  After two months of non-stop walking I think my legs are saying, "that's enough - you've slowed down now and I'm not speeding up again."  Anyway, as you might imagine after those comments, I didn't do much of anything today.

Breakfast was about 9 a.m. and last until about 11 a.m.  It's not a very busy place so they don't seem to mind if you hang around for a long time.  By the time I leave I've generally checked e-mail and facebook and read the news from Kelowna and maybe other news as well.  It's quite a novel way to spend a morning, at least in my books.

After going back to the room I decided to spend some time in the park reading my book.  I've started Pillars of the Earth and if you've read you know that there is a lot of reading in it.  By the end of several hours of reading today I reached the end of Part I so it was a good time to stop.  I then went back to the room and blogged for a while.  I think I now have Prague totally up to date so I am making progress.

Then I went down to the exercise room to do some stretching and weights and machines to see if I could limber up my legs.  The bike seemed easy so that was a good sign.  Some of the other machines were easy too but some of them definitely hurt my knees so I didn't stay too long on them.  It was good and definitely told me I have to do more stretching if I'm going to keep up the pace of walking, especially here in Europe where everything is up or down hill. I walk regularly but basically only on the flat so I'm not used to the stairs and slopes.

I went to use the spa area, which to me is all part of the same facility.  They have a dry sauna, wet sauna and pool so it seemed like a good way to spend an hour or so before dinner.  Well it turns out they wanted 10 euros for the visit and I wasn't about to pay that amount so I just left and went back to my room.  The spa area is nice.  I was in there the other day when I had my massage and no one told me then that I was getting the spa for free because of my massage so I just assumed that I could use the spa any time.  Oh well, that was not to be.

I went back to the room and showered and washed my hair and it was soon time for dinner.  We went down the street to a restaurant with outside seating.  The high was 28 today and there are lots of restaurants with outside seating so we thought we should take one given the nice weather.  I had ribs, potatoes asparagus and egg plant and it was all good.  I'm not a egg plant lover so that part of the meal I easily shared.  The rest I devoured.  With two main courses, one dessert and a bottle of wine the cost was 30 euros or about $45 so not a bad deal.

From there I walked home to do some blogging (this one in particular!) and then went to bed.  It's hard to believe you can be tired after such a relaxing day when you didn't really do anything, but I was tired.  I wonder whether I'll get caught up on all my sleep before the 28th when we move to Barcelona to start our Spain / Portugal tour?  I certainly hope so!!!