When things go right

Some things are just blog-worthy. What I have been up to in the four months since my last post, not blog-worthy. Today's events, definitely so. To give you some context in as few words as possible, though, I am currently in Barcelona, where I have been since August to study abroad and will be until December. Four months, in a nutshell.

Anyway, today I finally got the chance to do something that I have been hoping to do and excitedly looking forward to since I first confirmed that I would coming to Barcelona: ride with Michael Barry. We had never met before, but thanks to his writing in the New York Times, Velonews, and his own blog, not to mention his racing, I knew I admired the man. So I shot him an email and hoped for the best. To my delight, his answer was yes. (So this doesn't turn into a game of Jeopardy, my question was whether or not I could come to his hometown of Girona to ride together.) It never hurts to ask.

So at 6:30 am I was making coffee and eggs before hopping on the bike to catch the 8:15 train to Girona. By 10, we were rolling over to a cafe to pick up a friend of Michael's and then off to the open roads. Since I don't want to sound like some teenage pop-star groupie, though I guess I am in my own nerdy way, I'll just say that the day was everything I hoped it would be. The riding was fantastic, and I'm wondering why I don't live in Girona already. We climbed to a gorgeous reservoir that feeds (if that is the right word for drinking water) Barcelona, before ascending what I can only describe as a dirt and rock wall. With hardly a car to share the road with for the majority of the ride, we could pedal and talk care-free for 4 hours. Topped off with a delicious lunch back in Girona, the day could not have been better.

And that is one of things I love most about this sport: how easily we can share it. No matter how badly I wanted to, I could not go play catch with, say, Derek Jeter - though I would never actually want to since I am an unfortunate but painfully loyal Mets fan. But one of my favorite cyclists? No problem. And the fact that he's willing to host me in his hometown and on his favorite roads, even better. Like I said before, it never hurts to ask.

"So, how do we know you aren't just making this up to make us all jealous?" you might ask. Well, I don't own a camera, as I told my dad when he said I should bring one along. Fortunately, though, Michael does own a camera, so there are few pictures from the day so that especially all you New Englanders can be jealous of what I'm getting to do in the so-called winter here in Spain. I may miss fall in New England, and I most definitely miss apple pie (had to get a food reference in there somewhere), but I sure as hell don't miss freezing my balls off.

I'm not going to make any promises, but I will try to make blogging a more regular thing again. If nothing else, it will at least give me a reason to go find and do worthwhile things to blog about. And if anyone knows where to find a good pie in Spain, please let me know. The pastries here are delicious and cheap, but something about that gooey, fruity filling encased in a flaky and crunchy pie crust is just irreplaceable. The apple tarts just aren't cutting it.