I am settled into a comfortable little hotel in the town of Figueres on the Costa Brava in the Catalan section, north of Barcelona and south of the French border and the Pyrenees. It's artist country (Dali, Goya) here. I am just north of Girona, the attractive medieval town that served as a base for Lance Armstrong and other Tour de France riders during their pre-race training.
What is both fascinating and a bit confusing to me are the linguistic differences between Catalan and Castilian Spanish. It's clear there's a strong sense of cultural identity wrapped around this variation of the language, with its diverse spellings on signs everywhere. Of course, with limited high school Spanish at my disposal, it's a bit more work to make myself understood without knowing the nuances of Catalan speech.
The Internet speed is faster here than it was in Barcelona (yay!) even if the free hotel WiFi doesn't quite reach my 4th floor room in the back of the hotel. This I am online in the lobby, which is comfortable enough, even is spite of the elderly German tourists playing cards and yammering loudly nearby.
The only problem is that four of the episodes I've just downloaded seem to have disappeared from iTunes and my hard drive, so I've contacted Apple to resolve the situation so I can get caught up on my shows.
