Lazy in Llançà

It seemed strange this morning to wake up at 6 am (I always seem to wake between six and seven) and realise that I had no train or plane to catch, no teaching to get ready for class, no meeting to attend...  I could hear the tide coming in, with the waves crashing against the rocks in the little cove below our house, and I realised with a smile that I have a few days "holiday" in this charming little town on the northernmost coastline of the province of Cataluña. Yes, they speak Catalán in this part of Spain, and I've quickly realised that it might be more diplomatic to speak to people in French or English than in Spanish. In fact, many of the people we've met have been elderly French or German people who have holiday homes here. We ourselves are staying in a charming little apartment belonging to an American who willingly makes his house available for missionaries who would like to take a short break from their ministry responsibilities.

The sun was just rising as I wandered onto the terrace and looked out at the Mediterranean this morning. No other early risers were about, and it was after 9 o'clock before I saw the first pensioner spreading his towel on the little beach. What language does this one speak, I wondered. My holiday companion (she is actually the YWAM leader over the Central European nations like Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria) said I was a useful person to have around yesterday, as I was able to switch into French, German or Spanish - according to the response of the people we were asking for directions, as we found our way to our holiday home and then worked out how to get into town and find a supermarket. I would flag down a passing car and try to work out which language to choose, as we asked them, "Can you tell us which way to walk into town?"
We struck it lucky, and an elderly French couple told us to jump in the back seat of their car, next to their two little dogs. They drove us on a circular tour around the town of Llançà - down to the port and along to the old village square, as well as pointing out the supermarkets and telling us how to walk back home again.

Today, we had rather a lazy day - reading books and resting from our recent travels. I also went down to the beach two times for a swim. (Going down is easy; climbing up all those steps to the house again requires more effort!) For those of you who have good eyesight, the pink arrow here shows me on the beach, and the blue one shows Carmelita up on the balcony of the house. You can see there's quite a height difference between the two locations! For those of you who don't have eyes like a hawk, you can click on any of these photos to enlarge them.