The First Six Months: Things I Love About Spain

1. Baptisms.
2. Preach My Gospel.
3. Missionaries.
4. Recent converts.
5. Catalans. Yes they are proud, but aren't we all? And when your major holiday celebrates a battle that you lost, you need to work on finding things to be proud of.
6. Spainards.
7. Columbus. After all, his discovery of the New World made Spain the richest and most powerful nation of the age.
8. Spanish fathers walking their unbelievably cute children to school.
9. Running along the Carrer de les Agues high  on Tibidabo while the sun rises over the Mediterranean Sea.
10. Discovering, quite by accident, a Gaudi-designed aqueduct while running in the neighborhood.
11. Hot chocolate and churros. You know what I mean!
12. Dark chocolate bars from Consum for .65 euros.
13. Choco Bran Flakes (I am not making this up).
14. Driving through the Valencia orange groves with the trees laden with bright organge fruit and snow in the mountains.
15. Buying fresh clemetines with the leaves still attached at the rest stops on the tollway.
16. Seeing the Mediterrean Sea almost every day.
17. Riding the Euromed between Barcelona and Valencia.
18. Walking through Palma de Mallorca at night.
19. Zone Conference musical numbers - sometimes the entire zone singing a hymn in unison, sometimes Elder Quinn doing a magnificent piano accompaniment or Hermana Snow playing her violin.
20. The Assistants sleeping on the train after Zone Conference.
21. Barrio 2 - a Catalan bishop presiding over a congregation of Filipinos, Hondurans, Ecuadoreans, Bolivians, Africans, Nepalese, Americans, and Spaniards.
22. Archie, who speaks Tagalog, Spanish and English, usually all in the same sentence.
23. The guantería (glove shop) where the proprietress determines your size by feeling your hand.
22. Walking to El Corte Ingles, where you can by everything from designer clothing to motos.
23. Walking through Sarriá, our neighborhood medieval village.
24. Walking to the Monestir de Pedrables, our neighborhood medieval monestary (still in service).
25. The white swans in the cloisters of the Barcelona cathedral.
26. Gaudi - the Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, the streetlights on Gracia, the tile on the sidewalks, the hidden treasures all over town.
27. Design!
28. Signs in every chapel with a mobile phone with a red line through it.
29. Driving to Makro without a map or a GPS (yes, we can do it!)
30. Jaboneros, those wonderful stands that hold the pig leg in the dining room so guests can easily cut a slice.
31. Paradores - ancient castles converted into hotels.
32. Castles on the top of every hill out in the countryside.
33. The Costa Brava - the postcards don't do it justice.
34. The town of Tossa de Mar and its three sections: the ancient village (built by Romans), the old villa (11th century), and New Town (19th century).
35. One-way streets that run into each other head-on.
36. Electronic traffic signs that tell you whether the traffic is "Fluid" or "Dens".
37. Spanish women in high-heeled leather boots, tights, and long hair flowing out from underneath their helmet as they speed by on their moto.
38. Spanish men in business suits with their tie flying over their shoulder as they speed by on their moto.
39. Grandma's who dye their hair bright red.
40. Tapas.
41. Rebajas.
42. Spanish boots of Spanish leather.