Physical Fitness

In response to my demands that we exercise regularly, we have started running in the evenings (around 9pm) for a little over 20 minutes. I have been enjoying beginning to establish the routine, and Chee Sing has found us a nice loop that crosses a pedestrian bridge over the river (the route is more or less below, although we now go more through the park and run around a block). While a lot of people in Girona can be seen outside walking, we usually only run into a few joggers when we are out and about.

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In the evenings, there are even cute bats flying about through the swarms of gnats. I'll edit this post as soon as I can find out what kind they are.

Love, fishes, and exercising robots!
--Chrissy and Chee Sing

Girona Walking Guide - Route 1... almost

We finally decided to break open the walking guide we bought on Dia de Sant Jordi to try out one of the hikes inside. Unfortunately, the urge struck us in the early evening, so we didn't figure out the whole route as written, but we did see most of the highlights listed (including the Font del Bisbe, one of the two local springs you can actually drink from). Here are some photos:

Love, fishes, and robots!
Chrissy and Chee Sing

Temps de Flors

This Sunday, Girona finishes celebrating "Flower Time." The festival consists of a number of exhibitions, more artistic celebrations of spring than displays of living flowers (although plenty are to be had). We enjoyed walking the nearest displays last Saturday. They were quite enjoyable, although the tree below happens to be part of our Plaza's display... Unfortunately, I fear it will soon be removed since it's still in a small pot propped up with boards (they covered the boards with bamboo). We didn't make it out to catch the entire festival as planned since the week was besieged with intermittent pouring rain.
The next closest display to our plaza was at the game shop. They had robots from the group Chee Sing belongs too as well as crazy techno music and adorable (albeit less functional) robot toys.
Most of the displays were in Old Town where lunch prices rose from their normal ~13 euros to over 20 with the influx of local and foreign tourists. It was crazy! Normally uncrowded streets were clogged nose to nose and every other person had a camera slung round their neck.
One of the many highlights of the exhibition was the opportunity to enter a number of the local museums for free to see their displays for the festival as well as locals that would otherwise be closed to the public. There isn't enough room to post all of the photos of the displays, but hopefully this gives you a glimpse of a very interesting week to visit Girona.

Love, fishes, flowers, and robots!
Chrissy and Chee Sing

Feliç Aniversari, Chee Sing

This Saturday, May 15th, Chee Sing turned 24. We celebrated with a party! I made Choco-Flan which was easier than I expected, considering the flan sinks to the bottom while it cooks making a flan over chocolate cake (covered in caramel) when you turn it out. He now has a new board game, rice cooker, and even a small rug!Love, fishes, and older robots,
Chrissy and Chee Sing

Crochet Projects

While Chee Sing writes his MS thesis, I have been dabbling in the art of crochet in addition to typing up my research. I picked up the habit in Chile as a way of controlling the ridiculous quantities of plastic bags I regularly acquired. I've only just started with yarn instead of plastic, but so far I have made Chee Sing some manly house slippers and these small robots that will soon be fridge magnets (as soon as we buy some to stick on their hands).


I like that I can multi-task while crocheting, including activities such as books on tape. While I haven't made it through very many, it does bode well for my prospects of catching up on some of the novels I have missed. The cute patterns are based off ones I found in Crochet Today (magazine).

Love, fishes, and yarn robots!
Chrissy and Chee Sing

May Day! May Day!

On Saturday, our peaceful morning was filled with the discordant sounds of shouting, drums, and a few out of tune brass instruments. We headed out for the market and found the source. This parade of labor unions.We spotted signs for the two big unions here UGT and CCOO and finally realized that they were out because of the date, May 1st (like Labor Day for the rest of the world).
Luckily, we did most of our shopping at the outdoor market. When we headed out later to pick up a few things from the grocery store, the full realization of the day hit us. It's a holiday. Not just a marching day, but a "I hope you already have everything you need for the weekend because it will be closed today and tomorrow's a Sunday" day.

Love, fishes, and robots!
Chrissy and Chee Sing