Typical work morning

I'll try to give you a visual diary of my typical work day. First part is the morning. I get up—yup, it's dark in here with no windows. I've set up my iPhone on the night stand to act as my alarm clock. It's usually what I do when I travel, the iPhone charges and then wakes me up. After I get up, I put on my workout clothes and head out the door to the gym. I found out about this place during my advance web research. Google and google maps are really helpful tools for this sort of thing. I usually try to do this when I travel so that I get a sense for where a place is situated and what is in its proximity. So with the gym, I was happily surprised to find that it's just up the block from the apartment.

Above you see the main street that I cross on my way to the gym. It's Carrer de la Creu Coberta in the Hostafrancs district, with a metro stop of the same name. Pretty much right underneath my apartment is the Mercat d'Hostafrancs, one of a handful of these types of markets with fresh produce and meats. I pass by this market, then cross the main street then head up the narrow alley up to the gym.

That's the gym, pretty decent place actually. Where you see that domed roof is where the weights and aerobic machines are. There's a pool in there but I don't have my speedos here and I would also need a cap (I know not why, but those are the rules). I run in with my weight gloves and sweat towel. I do my "CBL" workout that I actually got from some weightlifting guy I met on a plane once. He said to spread out the body parts so that each gets rested, so C is for chest, B is for back, L for legs, and that's three days' worth. I finish off with shoulders and biceps/triceps and that's five days' worth and a full week. Each day I do "burpies" and aerobics, either jog on the treadmill or recumbent bike, each of these for 30 mins. The whole thing takes about an hour and by the end I'm awake :)

Once I get back from the gym, I make breakfast. Right now, that's ham on toast, OJ, coffee, and plain yogurt with honey. I catch up on the news (Drudgereport), down my coffe, and it's off to work. I'll write up the one-hour commute in my next post. But right now (Saturday night), it's time to head out to Plaza Catalunya and La Rambla to get some tapas and cervezas.