30SantLlorenc: Home again, home again...

Despite being crammed into tiny airplane seats for long periods of time, we made it all the way from Wellington back to Barcelona. It was a long series of connecting flights first to Sydney and from there to Singapore and London before we arrived in Barcelona where Elena's brother Luis picked us up.
There was a certain amount of weirdness along the way: For example, we had an eight-hour layover in Sydney and Josep's cousin Elena suggested we use that time to do a little sight-seeing. She especially wanted to see the famous Sydney Opera House. Sadly, that was not to be. The Australians, apparently afraid that we'd spend too much money buying souvenirs and lunch, refused to let us leave the airport without a visa.
More weirdness: Our luggage was screened in Wellington, then again in Sydney, then again in Singapore and once more in London. What made that weird, first of all, was the fact that there was no possibility that we could have picked up any contraband walking from the airplane to security. I raised that point with a couple different security types and all they could do was shrug their shoulders and paw through my luggage. My best guess: This is a way to put a lot of otherwise unemployed people to work while making it appear as though assorted governments are taking the "war on terror" seriously. Why do I think that? Well, after having our luggage screened in Sydney and other other stops along the way we were left to wander all over the various international terminals where we could have come into contact with any number of nefarious ne'er-do-wells before we, once again, boarded the plane. Yeah, you guessed it, our luggage wasn't screened before we boarded...
I could go on but there's no point: Anyone who has flown anywhere in the last dozen years or so knows that it's hardly worth the effort and certainly not worth the money.
I loved being in New Zealand even though we went through our share of storms and earthquakes but it did feel wonderful to come back to Reus Saturday afternoon; especially since Elena's mom and a dozen of her relatives gave us a really warm welcome - complete with a paella - once we arrived. Jet lag caught up with me after my second helping and a glass of wine so I took what I thought was going to be a two-hour nap: Can you say coma? That "nap" lasted 12 hours... jeez, this getting old thing is wearying.
We spent Sunday afternoon at El Mas, a farm just outside Reus that has been in the family for generations, for a combined welcome home-Sunday dinner-birthday party. There was a three-course meal, a birthday cake and that was followed by dessert. Oh my, whatever weight I might have lost in Middle Earth I gained back during that feast. (I'm not complaining... the food was great and the conversation afterward was just as rich. A lot of travel stories got told, including one involving one of Elena's aunts who apparently tried, once, to ride a camel in Morocco.) It was wonderful to sit beneath a 200-year-old tree listening to stories told by one of Elena's sisters, her aunts, a cousin or two, her mom and others. My Catalan is sketchy at best (I'm signing up for classes Monday) but just sitting back on a beautiful late-summer afternoon and letting the conversation wash over me was enough to wipe out all the negative effects of that long flight home.