Adéu Solsona!

Today is the last day in Solsona. It has been an amazing and unforgettable experience. I cannot believe it is at an end. But all things must end. I´ve learned many things since arriving here and formed friendships that will not be left behind, though I must go. I´ll be back. Thank you Solsona. Thank you Setelsis. Goodbye. See you soon!

On to the Camino de Santiago! Walking comences on Sunday May 29th. Santiago de Compostela in T-minus 21 days and 550km.

Fiesta de Despedida

Last night the teachers threw me a goodbye party. They had been planning it for weeks apparently and it was a surprise. They were all gathered in one of the teacher´s lovely gardens behind her home and they all brought a different dish. There was yummy food, good wine, music, dancing and definitely some tears. I can´t believe I won´t be seeing all these wonderful people who have been a part of my daily life for the past 9 months. They made my experience the positive one that it most definitely was. Gràcies a tothom! Gracias a todos! Thank you to everyone!

Museo de Dali

I returned from the school trip on Friday evening and spent a lovely evening unwinding from the excitement of what felt like a bizillion twelve year olds sitting on the paseo with Kristian and having a leisurely dinner. Sunday it was up early again and on the road. We had been invited to go north to Figueres and the Costa Brava to visit the museo and home of Salvador Dali. We went with the director of the school, her husband and two couples friends of theirs. The Dali Museum is in Figueres and was designed by Dali himself. It is very strange, but very interesting. From there we went east to Cadaques and Port Ligat where we visited Dali´s home. On the way home we stopped in Vic and had dinner. We didn´t get home until nearly one in the morning but it was a perfect day, with excellent company and beautiful things to see. A wonderful last trip.

Delta de l´Ebre

On the first day of the trip with the sixth graders, we stopped about halfway into our journey to the Delta de l´Ebre to visit Les Coves which are an underground network of caves whose origins date back to prehistory and were the homes of some of the first humans. It is also the the source of the rio Francolí. We toured the caves and then had a picnic lunch in the nearby town of Poblet outside of a beautiful monastery before boarding the bus again and continuing the journey south.

We spent three fantastic days in the Delta which is a land area that juts out into the Mediterranean and surprising to me, an important area for farming rice. There where rice fields all around us, sumerged in water, and stretching as far as the eye could see. There were five teachers, including myself and then monitors who lead the camp activities for the students. Bike riding, boat trips, scavenger hunts, rice mill tour, and a harbour tour. It was exhausting being with them 24/7 but also a lot of fun and a good way to connect with better with many of them before having to say goodbye this week.

Teacher´s bunk room

Sarah and Pete Day 2

On the second day of their visit, (which now seems like years ago as the last week and a half of my time in Solsona has flown by and been very full) the four of us went on another walk through the surrounding countryside so we could show off the farmland side of Solsona - which really is all sides once you leave the city proper. In the evening we had a lively game of cards in the apartment we have come to love, teeny kitchen, crappy shower and all! They left early on Wednesday morning and after seeing them off at the bus station, I too boarded a bus - this one full of 45 eleven to twelve year olds - and headed south to the Delta d´Ebre for three days at a summer camp for the 6th graders end of year trip. See next post!

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!

Presó Natural

On Saturday we were once again carried off on an adventure with willing Catalan tour guides. The guides in question this time were a young couple that we met through our friend Laura - Joanna and Francesc. Joanna is an English teacher and Laura's roommate in Manresa, Francesc is her boyfriend and muy catalanista. Together the five of us jumped into their car and made our way to el Pla de Busa. This is a mountain formation in which one small portion of the mountain is separated by a large gap and stands isolated and surrounded by sheer cliffs all around. They call it a "natural prison" and during the Napoleonic wars in 1811 the Spanish resistance fighters help their French prisoner on this mountaintop. To get them there they used a fallen tree stump as a bridge. Now their is a metal plank connecting one side to the other. We hiked the trail in the sunshine but still cool temperatures and all made our careful way across the plank.

On the way back down we passed through a wide open field and we were so overcome with feeling after returning safely from the prison that we couldn't contain ourselves and went bounding through the field with joy.

Independentista

About four weeks ago I signed up to be a part of a volunteer Catalan language exchange program. The goal of the program is to help promote the speaking Catalan. Natives and language learners volunteered to dedicate one hour a week for ten weeks to speaking. Each native speaker was paired with someone who is learning - and my partner and I have been meeting for a café at L'Espiga every Tuesday afternoon for four weeks now. It is amazing to me how the understanding of the language has crystalized for me over these 8 months, so that once I began going to classes and began to see how the grammar of what I have been hearing on a daily basis breaks down, I really am beginning to understand. Speaking still comes more slowly, but I do understand. I'm sure it is thanks to the Spanish that I already know, as the structure is similar. But hearing it every day doesn't hurt either. My conversation partner is a self professed independentista (someone who believes strongly in Catalan independence from Spain), so it has been fun to talk with him about Catalan history. Catalonia is of course a part of Spain and, final say always comes from the central government of Madrid. But it is an autonomous region and as an autonomous region, it has its own official flag. But it has another flag too, the independentista flag. It is called la estelada(the star). The star represents independence and the design was inspired in part by the flag of Cuba and their independence from Spain and from the US flag, which of course symbolizes each state and wouldn't have been possible without our independence from England. My conversation partner, who has connections, gave me a Catalan estelada flag and I promised him I would climb to the top of a mountain in the US, plant the flag and send him a picture. We've definitely caught some of the Catalan spirit. Until then, it is adorning our piso wall for our last two weeks in Catalonia. Visca Catalunya!

El Mag d'Oz

Almost since the beginning of the school year, several of my students have been inviting me to go see them roller skate. Solsona has an official Club de Patinaje (Skating). This past Sunday they finally enticed me into going with a fancy poster saying it would be a performance of the Wizard of Oz. Kristian and I found our way over to the Pavelló Vell in time for the 6pm show. The show began as any normal roller skating show would begin - with Catalan pomp and circumstance and the proud presentation of the Catalan flag which presided over the entire performance.

It was a strange experience, mainly because I don't think I've ever heard of a roller skating performance (nor am I sure they have existed in the US since the early '80s). The club members ranged in age from very little to probably high schoolers. It seemed there were three levels of proficiency - and here is where it got good. Each level, A, B and C, had a song and one by one the skaters performed their routine to the same three songs, depending on their level. Over and and over and over. Oh, and did I mention it was also the same routine? Awesome. About an hour and a half into the performance (yes, I said an hour and a half) there was a thirty minute intermission(!). We're still not sure why. Then it started all over again for another hour and a half. There were four older skaters who had unique, and quite good, routines to different music, which was a welcome change. One of them skated with all her heart to "Pride (In the Name of Love)" by U2. If you can imagine U2 blasting out in a brightly lit gym in the middle of Spain surrounded by Catalans and leotarded and roller skated 12 years olds, you can appreciate our amusement.

Finally, at just about 9pm, the full crew hit the floor, in full Wizard of Oz garb and there was about a ten minute abbreviated Catalan version of the Mag d'Oz (the witch wasn't finished off with a bucket of water and there was no melting, just a symbolic, anticlimactic breaking of her broom) - and then the performance was over. It was certainly an experience - and my students were tickled pink that I was there. So for that, it was worth it. I'm not sure Kristian will ever forgive me though...

On the walk home, perhaps because the Great and Powerful Oz was angered by the misrepresentation, the sky was ominous. Is that a tornado brewing - or just a gigantic cloud of volcanic ash?

La Campeona!

Sunday morning. April 25th, 2010. Marathon day. Madrid! The day broke with sunshine and cool temperatures, and we traveled into the city from Majadahonda where we were staying. We took the 7am train into Recoletos, and at each stop more runners boarded the train. I was feeling anxious but once we emerged out of the underground right onto the race course, my nervousness eased and was replaced by excitement. There were runners everywhere, stretching and jogging and drinking water and adjusting shoelaces and standing in line for the port-o-potties. Kristian, Laura (my friend from the program) and Petrina were there with me for support as we waited the 45 minutes until gun-time.

There was an absolute sea of people with over 8,000 runners that day - only 500 of which were women. The start line was mobbed and I was standing next to a group of guys that kept yelling "vamos!" while we waited the last five minutes before the gun went off. Then it did, and we were off. The funniest thing I've ever seen was within the first kilometer and we hit a tree-lined strip of road, on every tree was a male runner, leaning against it, relieving himself. I know the port-o-potty lines are long, but sheesh, we'd only just begun the race!

April 25th, race day, is also my dad's birthday, so I wore a sign on my back that said Happy Birthday in Spanish, English and Catalan. Fellow runners kept asking if it was my birthday or saying "felicidades". In the beginning, I corrected them saying it was my dad's, but as the kilometers added up, I just said thank you. Sorry dad, but I needed the encouragement. At one point a group of male runners sang feliz cumpleaños to me as they ran by. It was fantastic.

Kristian, Laura and Petrina had been given specific instructions on which km markers to be at to keep me going through 4+ hours of my run and they preformed their duties without fail and with definite flair. They always turned up right when I needed them. The marathon course was great, as it was essentially a tour of Madrid. We passed through the Puerta del Sol, went down the Gran Via, passed Bernabeu soccer stadium (Real Madrid), went through several really nice city park spaces and through it all, I just kept running, to the shouts of anímate chica! and venga chavala ya está hecho! and vamos campeona! from the crowd all throughout the course.

 13km

 20km

 25km

 36km

My official time was 4:31:15 and was 299 out of 500 women runners, 6660 out 8280 total runners and 81 out of 127 female runners in my age group (24-34). It was an amazing experience and a great way to see Madrid. And of course, now I want to do another one!

 42km!!!! Ya está hecho!!!