Saturday was one of those days of small amounts of repeated bad luck. First, as I was packing myself up to head out for Girona again to take in the art festival, I realized that I had no idea where my non-prescription sunglasses were. Obviously not as bad as losing the very costly prescription ones, but still. I liked those sunglasses! I resolved to buy some new ones in Girona. Then I set off for the train. As I waited at the stop for what felt like too long... it was too long. I had accidentally loaded a train schedule for the wrong day and weekend trains are more infrequent, so I had slightly over an hour to wait for the next train. The walk to or from Nau Côclea is about twenty minutes, so burning forty minutes just walking back and forth didn't make any sense. I decided to see if I could find sunglasses in Camallera. I did (though they were quite overpriced) and also bought a clementine and some water to help with the wait.
Once I got to Girona, I walked as quickly as possible to the arts festival, but I arrived just before 2pm due to the mistake in train timing. I had been told to aim to arrive more at 1pm as at 2pm everyone goes off to eat lunch for a couple hours. I did get to briefly say hello to the director of the Bòlit. Centre and she introduced me to a few of the artists. Due in part to my timing but I think mostly due to the newness of the festival, it was pretty underwhelming. There were four artists painting large murals, which were really cool, but apart from that there were just a few scattered stands selling relatively expensive jewelry and art.
I ended up staying at the festival for a pretty short amount of time and then just started to walk around and explore Girona again. I stopped for lunch (paella vegetal) and then saw that I had just enough time if I hurried to catch a train back. So I hurried... and got to the train station literally thirty seconds too late. And again, on the weekends the schedule is more infrequent and I'd have to wait two hours for the next train. The train station is moderately far from the heart of the city, so I grumpily started walking back into the city and bought a few groceries before catching the next train. Some dude tried to gently take my backpack from me (not to steal, I don't think - at least not immediately - but to test my boundaries and if he had succeeded to make it harder for me to want to walk away) and other weird behaviors in the train station again, but I managed to distance myself without issue. These are the times, though, that are frustrating traveling as a single woman.
The next day I worked in the studio. The following day I also mostly painted, but additionally had an excursion to a small rocky beach with Clara and a friend of hers in the evening. It was actually so nice and cool outside that evening that it was a little too cold for me to want to swim, but Clara promised many future opportunities.
The next day was once again devoted to studio work.
Then I got sick. This isn't a huge surprise; I actually don't think I get sick that often when I'm at home, but when I'm traveling I'm always being exposed to new viruses and bacteria. This time it wasn't a head cold like in Peru or Iceland - it was a stomach bug. Clara, in fact, thinks it may have been caused by drinking the potable but high in nitrates tap water, but I suspect that would have been a more immediate issue if it were the real problem.
I was sick for two days, which was both annoying from a productivity stance and also because we were supposed to go to Barcelona the second day that I was sick but I obviously wasn't up to it. Clara was super sweet and made me a soup and rice and bought me a big bottle of purified water.
After those two days, I felt pretty much okay the next day and painted again.