It’s been a long ten days. Sarah and I received our car okay in Montpellier. We picked up some groceries at the Super Marche then started our drive towards Pisa. We got to just past Nice then camped in the car for the night. The next day in Pisa was brief. We parked the car and spent 3 or 4 hours at the tower. If you really think about it, this tourist trap really isn’t that interesting. It’s just a building established on a weak foundation that has sunk a bit on one side. The result is a failed construction project that has created a tourism based economy for Pisa. Every person takes the same picture: the one where it looks like you’re pushing the tower back up. Some tourists show some creativness – they lay on their backs and use their feet to push the tower up. Then there’s the guided tours. 30 sheep follow some old lady around while she holds a pink umbrella up in the air. They’re even all tagged with a red piece of tape so they know which herd they belong to. As you can tell I’m getting a little tired of all the crowded tourist destinations. In the last 10 days we’ve been to Pisa, Rome, San Gimignano, Florence, Torino, Paris, as well as a few other lower key destinations. The ones I’ve listed however are all crowded with a million other people taking countless photos of the same thing. I suppose I fit right in, but often I was asking myself why I was even taking a photo of some building I couldn’t name on a street I couldn’t remember. When I get home there will be no significant story to tell about the photo.

Okay. I’ve finished my depressing little commentary on the tourism phenomenon. There have of course been many fun times. Recently Sarah and I visited the Louvre, Paris’ most famous museum. We spent most of our time looking at paintings. Let me tell you, the Mona Lisa is garbage compared to some of the other messed up renaissance paintings I saw. There were scenes of old school people eating fruit and frolicing in the meadow. The catch was that some of the people were half man, half goat. Fascinating stuff. I also like the paintings of outdoor areas. They give you an idea of what the land looked like before modern man turned it into a concrete paradise. In Florence we saw the statue of David. The guy made me feel powerless. I think that pictures nor words can describe what it’s like to be standing beneath such a magnificent piece of art. The view from the Eiffel Tower is impressive, but the vastness of the structure itself is even more striking especially when it’s all lit up at night. On our drive from Florence to Paris (90€ in tolls by the way) we spent a night in Torino with a kid I used to coach, Lorenzo. He and his girlfriend Isadora gave us a great tour of Turin. They both knew so much about the history of their city; I was impressed. They even treated us to the best gelato I’ve ever had.

Tomorrow we train to Valence to be with Team Canada at YWC. Then Sarah and I will spend two nights in London before we fly home! I miss you guys and a part of me can’t wait to be home. See you all very soon!

Sarah and I are currently on a train to Cerbere, which is just north of the Spanish-French border. We will then get on another train to Montpellier. There was a direct train, but it was full so after lots of confusion in the Barcelona train station we figured out our itinerary. In Montpellier we are picking up a rental car. We have it for a week. We will drive to Rome with stops at Pisa and other points of interest along the way. Then we need to drop the car off in Paris on the 21st. We have 4 nights in Paris then we train to Valence for the Youth World Championships. So everything is pretty much all planned out for the rest of the trip. Thank god. It was very stressful trying to plan without a laptop.

Last night we picked Mathilde up at the Barcelona train station. She had been training in Valence for the last five days in preparation for Worlds. We went back to a restaurant that was recommended to us by my brothers girlfriend: La Quinze Nits. On the walk there we were blocked by a policia incident, which must have just happened. The girls sheepishly stayed behind while Sean and I pushed to the front of the crowd to see what was up. We saw some paramedics working on a guy laying on the ground. There was blood pooling beside him and he wasn’t moving. It looked like the medics had given up. Sure enough they covered him up with a white sheet 5 minutes later. The police let some nearby friends approach him and we watched one guy lift the sheet past the victims head to give him five kisses of grief. Then a photographer stood over top of him to snap a few pics, which to me seems a tad indecent. It sounds like the person was stabbed in the chest and another guy was already in an ambulence. I don’t think either one was a tourist. The whole situation was pretty sad, but at the same time surreal to see. We continued onward and half a block away life went on as normal; tourists conversing over beers on the outdoor patios, oblivious to the death that just occured a stones throw away.

A few days ago Sean, Sarah and I drove to Rodellar for two days of climbing. Think of Horne Lake limestone times 1000. The walls are twice as high and twice as steep. Again I didn’t get on anything too hard and I didn’t work any routes. There wasn’t enough time. Instead I just tried to onsight everything. I came close to flashing a 7c+: “El Setes” (I think that’s what it’s called), but even after pulling the lip and resting on the biggest jugs, I couldn’t recover enough to push through the final crux. I forgot how good it feels to be so ridiculously pumped that even jugs feel like 5.14.

So I gotta say that the people in Rodellar are very… What’s the word… Confident: Near the end of day 1 we were climbing by a river. The river is a big attraction to families for picnicking. It splits into lots of pools that are great for swimming. Well, at the pool just 20 feet from us we see this guy stripping down to the buck to go for a dip. He’s not shy. He faced us and dropped his pants in front of about 10 other climbers and one little girl. That was Dick #1. While we were hiking out that same day we come around a corner to see another dude without pants. Dick #2. Then the next night, while doing laundry in the mens washroom another guy walks out of the shower swinging his piece in front of me and two others trying to brush their teeth. That was Dick #3. So in the 2.5 days in Rodellar I saw 3 dicks. On average that’s a Dick a Day! Of course you don’t want to look but you can’t help it; there it is right in front of you. You’re shocked and you wonder: WTF!? On the bright side (where the sun does shine), at least this experience makes me think of a certain V7 boulder problem at North Mountain in Hueco Tanks.

We’ve spent the last three nights in Barcelona (here they pronounce the ‘c’ as ‘th’). Before we arrived we climbed another two days at Ceuse. The climbing is phenominal. I didn’t do a single route that I didn’t like. It’s too bad we had to leave because I was just starting to feel like I had a bit of endurance.

There was some drama at the crag however. I watched a 19 year old Norwegian kid fall 20 meters (60 feet) and hit the ground. His girlfriend who had been belaying was using an ATC and let go of her brake hand when he fell from the top of the route. I heard him let out a viscious scream, which at least let us know that he was still conscious. Luckily he landed in some thick, dense bushes that softened the landing. Otherwise I think the fall would have been fatal. Everyone at the crag was quick to help and a rescue team arrived via helicopter within 30 minutes. He was then airlifted to a hospital in Gap. I found out later that the climber suffered a broken ankle and two fractured vertebrae. Not bad considering the distance he fell!!

The reason we came to Barcelona was for Sean to compete in a World Cup. He flashed both his qualifiers and did very well in semi finals. In the end Sean came 4th place after Adam Ondra, Ramon Julian and Sachi Anma. The competition was hosted in one of the stadiums built for the 1992 Olympics. There were over 1500 people spectating finals. I imagine that if climbing were to become an Olympic sport it would be run similar to this event. The fact that the venue was in a large Olympic stadium made it feel like a big competition.

When Sean wasn’t climbing we took in Barcelona’s attractions. My favourite was La Sagrada Familia, a palace architected by a guy name Gaudi. Construction began in 1882 and is still being worked on today! There is so much detail in this building; no two pillars and no two doors are alike. Barcelona is a great city to tour around. I would definitely come back to see more. However, I could never stay here for a long period of time. It’s too populated and too polluted. Too often a whiff of raw sewage is caught while walking the city streets. It’s gross! Barcelona makes Vancouver look like a nature reserve.

Now we are off to climb in Rodellar for two days. It will probably be way too hot, but at least it’s new scenery. After that Sarah and I will likely part ways from Sean and Mathilde. We might travel to Rome or maybe Greece. As of right now we’re still undecided. We do plan to be in Paris before we travel to Valence for the Youth World Championships. Can any of you recommend a place for us to go?

I’m back at McDonald’s using their free wifi. We are currently in Gap, the town closest to Ceuse. I’ve put in two days of route climbing already, but I haven’t been on anything harder than 12c. My endurance is horrible. The hike up to the crag is thankfully not nearly as bad as I had imagined.

We arrived here two days ago after a short drive from l’Argentiere where the TAB competition was held. The comp was very well organized and a lot of fun. Qualifiers ran over two days; a three hour session per day. There were 47 problems and every problem counted towards the final score. There were V14 climbers doing V0s to get the points. Sarah placed 34th out of 54 open females and I came 29th from 111 open males. Sean made finals and clinched 2nd place after flashing the 4th boulder. The prize money for second place was €1000!! When are competitions in Canada going to get to this level?

The next day we drove towards Gap. On the way we stopped at a nice lake off the side of the highway. We spent about three hours swimming, tanning and lazing. When we got back to the car we discovered the most horrible thing: the car was broken into. The window wasn’t smashed but the passenger door was pryed open in order to unlock it. I’m usually pretty paranoid about leaving my bag unattended, but for some reason I left it in the car. In it was my Macbook, headphones and $700 wide angle lens, which had already been stolen once before. Sarah’s day pack with all her climbing gear was gone. Sean lost his bag of climbing gear and Mathilde’s laptop was also taken. Luckily Sean’s prize money was still in the car; the thieves didn’t search through anything, they just took what was easily accessible. In terms of value I think I was hit the hardest. I’ve definitely been feeling a bit down over the last few days. Hopefully that will subside over time. At least I didn’t lose any photos because I hadn’t even had the chance to upload them from my camera yet.

We are planning two more climbing days in Ceuse then we will drive to Barcelona with a brief stop in Valence along the way. Sean will be competing at a world cup there. Sarah and I will act as coach and physio so we can get greater than spectator access. We’ll probably spend 4 days in Barcelona then we’ll go to Rodellar to climb in the sun for a few days.

There is still a lot of time left in our trip, we won’t be back until September. However there are some exciting things awaiting us when we get home. Before I left I sold my Condo. This means that Sarah and I will be home-shopping as soon as we get back. We’re looking for a place on the North Shore. By then there should also be prime conditions in Squamish!

Unfortunately I don’t have a way to upload photos to this blog post. Until I figure out a way to do so, my words will have to suffice.

The morning after the SuperKrank competition looks to be promising for Squamish climbing. There will be a crew of us hunting for dry rock sometime after 2:00. Expect a photo post later tonight!