Homage to Catalonia

I can't believe it has been almost two weeks since I have posted anything. How time flies! And so much has gone on in the meantime. On the 13th (Friday the 13th to be precise) it finally happened folks. After all the stories I've heard over the years tourist being robbed and how important it is to be aware of your belongings when traveling - and always being sort of skeptical about how it could happen - it happened to me. What an awful, helpless, foolish, frustrating feeling it is to be robbed. Those were MY things! What right do they have to take them? Luckily for me, I was not carrying my passport. But they got my sweet Timbuktu bag! Mostly I lost sentimental/useful things, that would be of no use to the robber but were amazingly distressing for me to lose. My notebook with all the English lesson planning I have done since arriving here! My pocket moleskin with various unintelligible scribbles that only I understand. My change purse that my dear friend Allison gave me before my trip to Costa Rica. A favorite lip balm that I can only get in Eugene, Oregon. They are probably all just sitting in garbage can somewhere in Barcelona. I would have rather just been asked for all my money and gotten to keep my bag and its precious cargo! Instead they snuck off with it while my head was turned... I didn't even know it happened. I know, I know! I should have been more careful, believe me, I only blame myself. So the Spanish Adventure continues...

In brighter news, this past Saturday we went with a group of teachers from my school on an excursion to Gósol, a small town set deeper into the prepirineos. When Picasso was in his early twenties, he spent two or three months in Gósol over the summer, and it was here that he painted some of his famous works and began to explore a more cubist style in his paintings. We explored the town, visited the house where he lived, took some pictures from the balcony where he painted, and ate lunch in a local restaurant. We also made some stops along the way to Gósol: at the mouth of the river Cardener, and in a town shooting up into the sky on a hilltop in the middle of a valley surrounded by larger mountains. Breathtaking. Here are some highlights: