Ampolla

Today we packed and cleaned up the house and headed to Ampolla, next to the Ebro river Delta.  Mel and Leta very generously drove all the way out there to open up the apartment for us.  The building it brand new and is pretty fantastic -- small enough so that there aren't people constantly coming and going, but right on the water.

After we said our goodbyes to Mel and Leta

 

and they headed out.

 Mel stopped a half block away, turned around and waved to us with this unique and wonderful smile that he does.  What a great guy.

We were all famished, so we headed out to find some paella for lunch.  The place we found had an immense lunch menu, but the Paella was a little lacking.  Next, it was beach time

the beach:  I will admit that I am really not a beach person at all and in fact find it a bit torturous.  Nevertheless, the kids adore it, and go into a state of elation that is impossible to deny.  At one point while paddling around in the water, Zoe looked at Chloe and said "I am SO, SO HAPPY!".  I built sand castles with alex, and did not go in the water since I had somehow forgotten my swimsuit.  After much beach time (FREE INTERNET ON THE BEACH!) we went back to the apartment to wash off the disgusting mix of sunscreen and sand that was by now adhered to us.  Chloe and I went out to try to find a restaurant when we noticed that people were congregating at some stands at the end of a pier.  We didn't think much of it until we realized that there was a bull!  It was a bull fight!  The crazy thing is that the bull would get taunted into jumping into the water.  Then a bunch of them would pile into a motorboat and pull the bull back to a boat landing by the horns.  The thing is, some of these bulls were really fast swimmers and could make it almost all of the way across the harbor before the motorboat could get there.  I can only imagine what kind of mayhem would be unleashed by an enraged bull running out of the water onto the beach. 

Anyway, we were looking for a place called El Pescador, which was as usual nowhere near where Tripadvisor thought it was.  We eventually found it though and had an awesome meal of squid ink paella (mom and I shared this) and grilled langoustines

Despite spending a lot of time out on the pier I did not manage to get any photos of the bull jumping into the water.  Alex came to help though