Sarah and Pete in Catalonia: Day 1

Sarah and Pete arrived on Sunday afternoon, just in time to catch the tail end of the Fira de Sant Isidre here in Solsona, which is an important festival. Sant Isidre is the patron saint of agriculture and historically the fair has been a place where farmers bring in their livestock and in later years farming equipment demonstrations where also added to the fair. The fair continued to grow and now it almost as important to artisans to come and sell their trade; wood and stone sculptures, handmade jewelry, paintings, leather shoes, cheeses and cured meats, jams, bread - it was a feast for the eyes and the stomach. We wandered around, showing off our Solsona to them - which in its bustling fair-covered state it didn't much resemble the more or less peaceful Solsona we have come to know. Our next stop was the Cantabric for the last Barça game of the season - visca Barça! They won and are the 2010 La Liga Campeons. Next, dinner at Cobert and then off to bed.

Yesterday was the first full day with them here and we started the morning off with café and chocolate croissants at the Patisserie de Passeig - and then marched them up to the castle. It was a beautiful sparkling day. On the walk home we stopped in the Mare de la Font park and had a picnic lunch, refreshing ourselves in the spring water that flowed from the fountain.

In the afternoon I brought them to school with me and visited my sixth grade classes. I organized and question answer session, initially encouraging the student to figure out who my guest were. They caught on pretty quick, but they impressed us all with their English and their confidence, after an initial bought of shyness, and kept firing questions at Sarah, Pete and Kristian. "What's your favorite color?", "what is your favorite musical group?" "Pete, how did you meet Sarah?", etc. The best questions were the loaded ones: "what is your favorite soccer team?" "what is your favorite country?" "do you prefer Catalonia or Spain?" "Do you think Catalonia is a country?". These kids are great! We had been explaining to Sarah and Pete about how many Catalans would like to be independent from Spain - but I think the questions from the kids really sunk the point home for them. They are serious about this!