Today's quote: Take no notice of the firecrackers, you are the bomb. I was charged with taking the kids to buy fireworks for the fiesta of San Juan in the summer. This involved an awkward standoff because I didn't realise you needed ID to buy fireworks which became more awkward when I worked out that to buy the small firecrackers we wanted you needed to be 16. It will come in handy looking youthful one day!
After Saturday's excursion to Sitges, it was time for a day out in Barcelona. I hopped on the bus and was happily working away at my Duolingo (really handy language learning app on my phone) when the bus inexplicably emptied leaving only me and another headphone user seated and confused. As soon as I looked out the window the reason for the diversion became evident. Streams of people with Spanish flags and cars with horns blaring filled the streets leading up to the main square-Placa Catalunya. The 'Fiesta nacional de Espana' is a national holiday and used to be called 'El dia de la hispanidad' to celebrate the anniversary of Columbus' landing in the New World on October 12, 1492. The change in name draws the focus away from Spain's historic colonialism and links with Latin America.
In Barcelona those who want Cataluyna to remain in Spain seemed to be using the holiday as an opportunity to promote ideas of unity.
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| 'Everyone's Spain' |
I think I may have overdone it with patatas bravas recently and decided Asian food sounded very appealing so we found the Vietnamese 'Bun Bo' round the corner from the cathedral. Initially there was a tense wait while our name was drawn up on the chalk board and our place in line, and even the wisdom of the chalk board system, was disputed with various customers. We were threatened by a serious looking waitress with a half hour wait before being being led to a table after all of about five minutes.
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| Delicious chicken noodle salad |
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| Bun Bo |
A selection of Barcelona's museums and art galleries are free on Sundays and the best way to be a culture vulture is to take advantage of anything free! The Museum of History of the City in the centre gives an insight into the Barcelona of the Romans. You can walk around a whole section of the remains of the Roman city streets with a laundry area, wine making, fish-smoking, shops, houses and city walls. We were slightly dubious as to quite how they had deduced all this information from at times fairly sketchy details (different shaped pile of stones) but the historians are clearly the experts here.
I think it's interesting how concepts like spoons and rings have changed so little over thousands of years because the ideas are so simple and effective. These remains have been so well preserved because it has been underground for quite some time now. I'm pretty disconcerted walking above this area knowing that buildings were built on top of these ancient remains. It doesn't feel safe!
I think it's interesting how concepts like spoons and rings have changed so little over thousands of years because the ideas are so simple and effective. These remains have been so well preserved because it has been underground for quite some time now. I'm pretty disconcerted walking above this area knowing that buildings were built on top of these ancient remains. It doesn't feel safe!
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| After culture vulturing everyone deserves ice-cream |
My other culture vulture attempt recently has been to make my way through 'Love Story' by Erich Segal in Spanish which the host mum has kindly lent me. She loves the film although I haven't seen it. My lack of film knowledge constantly surprises the family who have definitely seen more English language films than I have. She assured me it would be a very easy read and was then apologetic when I showed her all my vocabularly from the first few chapters! I was finding I was getting the gist by reading through a chapter first then collecting lots of useful words with a dictionary the second time around.
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| Vocab learning attempts |
I also have a new running coach! Her motivation techniques include shuffling hopefully over to me when I'm having breakfast and generally being so overexcited I think it will become difficult to skip a morning's run. We're establishing a good routine of a warm-up walk down to the beach with frequent stops to make friends and we leave no stone unsniffed. Then the serious work starts on the beach path. Apart from a few sit down protests when we have to leave the beach and start making our way back she's really well behaved. One friend-making technique seems to involve a fun game of picking the smallest dog on the beach to sit on but I always chat to the owners and they seem relaxed! On Tuesday we had a suspicious foot injury which I'm pretty sure she was faking because she miraculously recovered when another dog came past and she wanted to play. But I can't say I blame her, I rarely want to leave the beach either!
We also have a new game: Digging to Australia.
It's a work in progress
We also have a new game: Digging to Australia.
It's a work in progress
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