We've finally made it to La Coruña!

After months and months of work permit delays we are finally in Spain! Juan and I spent most of our first day walking around the city.


There are several nice beaches in La Coruña. Here is Juan in front of the Playa del Orzan. There were actually decent surfers out in the ocean and even a few swimmers! burrrrr.

Right behind Juan's left ear is the Fútbol Stadium - the La Coruña team is pretty popular. Check out the website at http://www.deportivo-la-coruna.com/city.html.

There is a boardwalk that goes around much of the city, mainly along the beaches and the port. It was very full of people for a rainy Sunday morning! There were several people out with dogs - it made us miss our little Ringo!

Here is a picture near the Parque de Santa Margarita. The wall behind me is made up of all different sorts of materials - you can't really tell from the picture, but it's pretty cool ;) The park itself has shaded trails weaving through hills. In the center of the park is a planetarium. I'm sure that Juan and I will go back and see what the planetarium is like - we can put our Rice SPAC courses to use.


We ate lunch at a little restaurant in the Plaza de María Pita. We had some vino, salad, and fried seafood. This plaza has probably about 10 little restaurants that have most of the seating outside. Most people were camped out for a long lunch - enjoying their wine and the sunshine. This picture shows the main plaza along with several of the restaurants - each is under a little tent.


After lunch we walked over to the Hotel Finisterre, home of the swimming pool that I want to swim in. It is a heated, outdoor, salt water pool - right off of the ocean. I think there is some sort of sports club affiliated with the hotel. We're going to investigate this more in the coming days.
While we were at the Finisterre, we stumbled upon a dart throwing tournament! I didn't know such things existed.


There are several very very old churches around the city. This picture is of a relief above the door to one church - I thought it was pretty cool. It seems like we did a lot of exploring for the first day. La Coruña is a lot like Boston in that it looks very big on the map, but when you start walking around, it takes no time at all to get from one side of the city to the other. Tomorrow we're going to try to find an apartment, open a bank account, get cell phones, and visit the La Coruña police in order to become Spanish residents. It looks like it's going to be a very busy day!