Where's Jerry?

I know most of you are wondering if we dropped off the edge of the earth. In a way.. yes we did. Let me bring you up to date:

We arrived in Spain on a Tuesday and were told that we wouldn't need to go to the office until Thursday. Our assistant, Fedrico, drove us to our hotel in Cambrils and we checked in and unloaded our bags. Then he drove us down into the village and we walked around through the shoppes and restaurants. We had a pizza at a little place overlooking the beach. It was great!

Then it was back to the hotel and we managed to stay awake until around midnight. We wanted to get our bodies used to the time in Spain and avoid as much jet-lag as possible.

We slept until around 10 a.m. the next morning and Fedrico picked us up for a tour of the project we would be working on. We also spent some time discussing how to organize our offices and made lists of what equipment we would need.. how many desks, chairs, etc. and where everything should go. Then we went shopping for some things that we needed for ourselves. We had a late lunch at McDonalds, and went back to the hotel.

That evening, Mel and Robert had a meeting with the client to finalize some details of the project. On the following morning we got a call telling us that Mel and Mitchel (another associate on the team) would be meeting with us for lunch the next day. It was at lunch that Mel told us that the client was backing out of the contract to hold an auction. We were stunned. Mel told April and I that we should just wait it out for a couple days while everyone determined what we needed to do. The following day we learned that another meeting with the client was scheduled for the following Tuesday afternoon.

We tried to enjoy the weekend but because the project was cancelled we didn't have Fedrico at our disposal with his car. Our Hotel was about 2 kilometers from the beach and about 4 k from the village. It was a little too far for us to walk there and back so we stayed in our hotel room and watched Spainish TV and did sudoko puzzles. At some point during the weekend I went down to the pool and got a desent sunburn on my chest and one side of my legs. It's not difficult to burn in only a few minutes when your body hasn't seen sunlight for 20 years!

We eventually learned that the client did indeed want to cancel the project and the hotel informed us that he would not be paying for our stay there beyond the 31st. Robert put us up in a small apartment of his in the nearby town of Calafel and we spent two uncomfortable nights there. The only bright point was that we were now only a block from the beach.

I will interject here on the beaches.. they are some of the finest beaches in the world. The area is known as the Gold Coast because of the golden color to the sand. It really is gorgeous! However, one must be cautious. The Mediterranean is known for having nude beaches and family beaches. It's easy to avoid the nude beaches but the family beaches can be treacherous too.. as it's not uncommon to find topless sunbathers on the family beaches. We avoided this situation by visiting the beach in the early morning hours when they weren't crowded. We had the beach mostly to ourselves and with others who wanted to avoid the crowds.


On Saturday the 2nd we returned to the airport and boarded a plane back to the USA. We arrived in SLC late on Saturday evening. Bob picked us up and we are currently staying at his home. Sunday was spent getting through the jetlag ritual and today I started looking for work. We are at the moment homeless and unemployed.

Now you know where Jerry is!

That's our story and we're sticking to it!