CWT Journal – August 24, 2026 / Costa Brava

We woke at the extremely un-Spanish hour of 7:00 a.m. and drove about 45 minutes to the Costa Brava, meeting Carrie and Keith in the beautiful seaside town of Tossa de Mar. From there we hiked high along the coastal cliffs, eventually descending to a secluded beach where we cooled off with a swim and some snorkeling in the Mediterranean.

We returned to Tossa for a beautiful lunch before heading back to Girona for a well-earned siesta. After a midday workout, Mom and Dad met Carrie, Keith, and Emily one last time for a traditional Catalan dinner.

One of the interesting things we’ve learned traveling through Spain is that “Spanish” isn’t the country’s only language. Castilian Spanish is spoken throughout the country, but Spain also has several other languages with official status in their regions, including Catalan, Galician, Basque, and Aranese. Catalan isn’t a dialect or mixture of Spanish and French—it’s its own Romance language, descended from Latin alongside them, and hearing and seeing it everywhere has made Catalonia feel culturally distinct from the other parts of Spain we’ve visited.

Finally, we presented Carrie and Keith with a very special parting gift: 15 pounds of our unwanted clothing. In reality, the gift was theirs to us—they graciously agreed to box it up and ship it back to Georgia, lightening our load considerably for the months ahead.

True friendship is helping someone carry their burdens. Great friendship is mailing 15 pounds of those burdens back to America.