A week away from work – and another week away from Amsterdam …

I avoided a work trip to Copenhagen a couple of weeks ago –  but only because I was traveling to Barcelona on holidays, so the international travel has not stopped.

Traveling light …

Definitely the most challenging part of the holiday was traveling with two bike boxes – and all our luggage! Our friend Ian had lent Hayley his bike box, and I had lent her my little blue carry on suitcase. Obviously Ian had spoken some magic words about the importance of is bike box, as Hayley was very protective over it. She even had trouble parting with it to give to security on our way to Barcelona. Every time I turned around, she was preciously guarding the bike box, and my poor little suitcase was falling to the floor!

Maybe she had a premonition of things to come though … for when we returned to Amsterdam, my bike box was first off the conveyor belt … and Ian’s was nowhere to be seen! KLM tracked it down to Paris … Eventually it made it home though.

The Triathlon

As you know from my posts, I recently decided to re-enter the world of triathlon. I had two races this season: In Flanders Field triathlon and Barcelona triathlon. After the disastrous mechanical failure in Ieper, I was almost at wit’s end when we arrived in Barcelona and my bike had been damaged in transport! The back wheel skewer was bent. Fortunately, it was fixed for the price of a smile at Barcelona’s ProBike store, and I was ready to race.

If you’re interested in reading my race report, it’s here. If not, the short story is I pulled out a really fast time for my first Olympic Distance Triathlon, and placed 9^th of all the females.

Next up: time for some celebration and naked man watching

After the race, my friend Hayley and I headed out for cocktails, Cava sangria (amazing – even better than regular Sangria!) and tapas. We sat at a beachside bar at the very beach the triathlon had been on – and discovered this was also a nudist beach! We watched an old man parade around the beach naked (yes, I mean parade – he had his hands wiggling around his backside like peacock feathers!). Fine free entertainment for the patrons of the beach club bar.

Back to training, and encounters with Spanish prostitutes

Tuesday we decided to cycle to Montserrat – about 5km north west of Barcelona. Our goal was to climb this category 1 mountain. Unfortunately, the road signs were not particularly clear. I took us to a mountain, but not the mountain. It was still a really steep one – and since we thought this was only on the way to Montserrat (rather than a mountain in its own right, kind of far from Montserrat) we were a bit fearful of what Montserrat would bring …

Fortunately, there were things to take our minds of the harsh gradient – such as trying to figure out what these women were doing on the side of the road … Here we were, on a deserted mountain, with most of the traffic being trucks. And there they were, women sitting on plastic chairs, wearing skimpy clothes, high heels and bright red lipstick. Wait a minute … could these be prostitutes?

Before I figured that out, I stopped to wait for Hayley after one of the tougher climbs, standing close to one of these women. I tried to smile, she spoke to me in Catalan in a rather unfriendly tone. Perhaps she was worried I was moving in on her territory;-)

A few days later, we took the train to the bottom of Montserrat – to ensure we got there. We then began the steep climb up the mountain … that was the fun part! Going down was a terrifying experience …

Overall, it was a great week away – time spent with good friends in sunshine and warmth. Can’t wait til next year’s event, when more of the Cyclodammers are talking of doing the triathlon and joining us for the holiday after.