After a day of traveling to Girona by train, Giana's disease was getting the upper hand and mine was not improving. Upon arrival at the station we were struck by how clean it was. The streets too seemed incredibly clean and signs on various light poles advertised "Girona free wifi". Our apartment sat atop at least four flights of narrow stairs. When we learned it wasn't equipped with wifi (unlike apparently the rest of the entire city), we all went to bed early.
The next day Maria and I roused bright and early and without wifi decided to listen to a book on tape I had downloaded into my phone (The Odyssey, read by Ian McKellen). After about an hour we decided to embark on the day's only planned project: making chicken soup. Since Giana still lay unconscious, we left a note and hit the town.
Neither of us ever having made chicken soup, we tried to find wifi to look up some instructions, a task that proved quite difficult. The "free wifi" all over the city did not work on our devices because the registration process required sending a text message (which we couldn't receive) and the prevalence of wifi meant most cafes and restaurants didn't offer free wifi. Desperate, we finally stopped in a café and asked if we could use their wifi. Obviously unaccustomed to this sort of request yet very kind, they set to work writing down the password off the router in the closet. We got some recipes and let our families know we were still alive, just without Internet for the next day, then headed to the supermarket. Shopping was helped again by friendly locals, despite our accidental attempt to screw things up. Carrying our groceries back in the Spanish sun, I became increasingly aware of the fatigue wrought on my body by the disease. Maria had to take the bags up the stairs to the apartment while I trudged up after.
We found Giana had taken a turn for the worse, but an hour later we had bowls of piping hot chicken soup. Maria and I felt very proud of our accomplishment, especially considering the tools we had to work with. I felt so good Maria and I left after lunch to actually see a bit of the city.
We explored the old city center, stopping in a few cathedrals and walking along the remains of the wall that protected the city. We took a lot of photos in the dusky light of the town and the mountains all around. For dinner we had more soup and then went to bed early again.
"Part of the ship, part of the crew"
- Micah