A Day in the Life of My Barcelona Quarantine

Wake up, bake, eat, repeat.

We are on Day 32 (¿The days run together, don’t they?) of our lockdown here in Barcelona. Many of you know our lockdown doesn’t look like the lockdown in the US. We literally can’t leave our apartment except to get groceries or medical treatment. And it is strictly enforced: with over a thousand arrests and many tens of thousands of people fined already. In fact, Jim was questioned by the police while on his way to a doctor’s appointment and we were both questioned and admonished (no fine, thankfully) because we went to the grocery store together. That’s right, only one person is allowed to go for groceries at a time. So we don’t have the ability to distract ourselves with walks, runs, bike rides, hikes, or even Amazon shopping.

Wait, what? No Amazon shopping?! Well, Amazon exists in Spain, but not like Amazon in the US. The selection (even in non-coronavirus days) isn’t what it is in the US and our prime membership doeen’t apply here, so shipping times are slow. For example, I can buy witchhazel, but it’s about $18 plus shipping vs $6 with prime shipping in the US. I was able to get a reasonably priced yoga mat in only about a week though, so all is not bad.

So what am I doing to keep busy and mentally sane? How are we holding up? Do I have a pet fly yet?

Yoga

Working on focus. I’m doing a thirty day yoga challenge (Yoga with Adriene). I am completely in love with her. I know, I know, I’m late to the party and everyone else already loves her. I’ve never been one to do much yoga, always busy running or lifting weights without enough time to slow down and focus on the basics. She has an awesome 30 day yoga practice that is simple and feels like just the right amount of time each day. She also has a set of foundation videos to get to understand the individual poses. I’m on day 26 right now and thinking about jumping to some of the longer videos once I’ve completed the 30 days. I’ve got to do something to keep me from eating everything I’m baking!

Baking

Sourdough starter from scratch. Plenty of flour here so I’ve been testing out different soft pretzel recipes. This is so dangerous since Jim isn’t eating his fair share of them. Making lots of other baked goodies too though that he does eat his fair share of, like peanut butter m&m cookies, peanut butter cups, and brownies. I can’t always find the ingredients I’m used to using, so my tried and true recipes get some substitutions. So far, I’ve managed to keep things delicious!

Running Stairs

We have six flights of stairs in our building. If you can’t run mountains, run stairs, right? Running mountains is definitely more mentally stimulating, but I try to put on one of my non-fiction audiobooks so I have a chance to exercise my mind as well.

Work

It’s always nice when clients throw work at you to keep you busy. Environmental permits still need to be reviewed and commented on and compliance with environmental regulations is considered “essential” (especially since most states claim all construction is “essential”).

Lifting “Weights”

Like everywhere, the gyms are closed. I still follow my workout plan as best as I can though with our homemade “weight set”. Using re-usable grocery bags, we are able to get some pretty heavy weights (for Jim to lift since I’m a weakling and rarely need more than 22 pounds. 😁

Evening Binge-Watching

Finished off The Expanse series and are re-watching the first two seasons of Goliath so we can watch season 3. And of course, we watched Tiger King. How could we not? We were hoping to watch Money Heist, but it’s only in Spanish with Spanish subtitles and our Spanish just isn’t that good!

As for a pet fly… I've been able to keep sane so far and have resisted adopting a pet fly. We have three weeks left in Spain (if our flights don’t get canceled). There is some talk of loosening up the restrictions a bit to let us go for walks in a couple of weeks… fingers crossed!