Our Weekend in Andorra

Yes, Andorra....ever heard of it??  It's a VERY small country in between France and Spain.  Ellen had a  spontaneous idea on Thursday night to go skiing in Andorra for the weekend, so eight of us girls packed up and left Friday afternoon after our classes!  We took a bus there and when we crossed the border from Spain into Andorra it began to snow.  I'm not a huge fan of snow but I have to admit it was beautiful!  We finally got to our hotel, Hotel Pyrenees, and had a delicious dinner in the restaurant in the hotel.  I had escalope (a breaded thinly cut steak that I tried in Comillas a couple summers ago) and it was just as delicious in Andorra.  We called it a night pretty early so we could hit the slopes the next morning.

View from the town of the mountains:

We woke up in time for the complimentary hotel breakfast -YUM- and then caught a bus up to the resort.  We stopped at a rental place to rent some skis and we decided to purchase the lift ticket for half of a day so we waited until 1:00 to begin.  We waited in a cafe at the bottom of the mountain and had a couple of hot chocolates with Baileys before we headed up in a Gondola to the top of the mountain and were on our way.  It was SO cold and we didn't have real ski wear so we looked silly in our leggings and rain coats but it was a lot of fun... well until part of my ski broke off at the top of the mountain.   Here I am with my broken ski...

So I had to get someone who worked there to help me down the mountain since I obviously couldn't ski anymore and he called a van to come pick me up and take me back to the lodge at the top.  That ended my day of skiing, but now I can say that I have been skiing in Europe!!  It was a lot of fun and such a great experience.

We went back to the hotel and took a nap to rest up from our long day.  We woke up to go out to dinner at a cute little restaurant down the street.  I ordered an "Ensalada Catalonia" or a Catalonian Salad... it didn't have a description underneath it but I thought I'd give it a try.  It was basically lettuce, Spanish ham, and cheese and it was delicious.  For dessert, Amanda and I split what we thought was creme brulee but it was actually like a frozen creme brulee and of course it was also delicious.  We then went to the discoteca in Andorra called "Buda" and stayed there for the rest of the night.

We slept in this morning and went to lunch at Mama Marias before we headed back to Barcelona on the bus!  Now we're at home and I'm preparing for classes on Monday and Tuesday before IES takes us to Southern Catalonia and Valencia from Wednesday until Friday.  We're stopping first in Tortosa then to Valencia and then to the Torres Vineyards.  It should be a lot of fun!

Adios!!