I headed into the city on Wednesday morning to meet a friend after her language lessons. I arrived early and popped into El Corte Ingles (big department store not disimilar to John Lewis) in Placa Cataluyna. I think I need to revisit the international food section- curry and baked beans have become a distant dream! I had to limit myself to soy sauce but I will be back. I had looked up where to find British staples online but was immediately thrown into forums of Benidorm residents who were up in arms about the price of marmite and it was all a bit extreme for me. Ironically it is foreign food like curry, stirfry and fajitas I am missing most from home, and baked beans of course.
Next stop, Raval. Our route in via Carrer de Tallers seems to have modelled itself on Camden with the Tube station signs, tattoo/piercing shops and vintage clothes.
The Museum of Contemporary Art reminds me of the Tate Modern and South Bank of the Thames, complete with skateboarders doing tricks outside.
I treated myself to a set of cards with depicting different city walks for wandering with intent!
This week has meant frantic preparations for Halloween. I think Halloween is still a fairly new concept in Spain but enthusiasm levels are high! Lots of shops are decked out with cobwebs and pumpkins, which has all looked fairly strange in the warm weather. The traditional Catalan celebration at this time of year is the Castanyada and the streets have been full of people roasting chesnuts and sweet potatoes over open fires.
My Halloween responsibilities kicked off with a brainstorming session with the girls as to what they wanted to do in their party. I felt like a bit of a fraud as we've never taken Halloween too seriously beyond the obligatory pumpkin and occasionally trick-o-treating, not to mention the fact I can't cope with remotely scary movies. However as soon as the conversation came around to food I was back in my element and we made plans for different competitions. I was also tasked with finding the boy a Roman sword, the Chinese equivalent of a pound shop had a surprisingly high selection of swords (ninja, pirate, daggers, star wars-like) but my 2.50 euro bargain went down well. I had to take it to a language exchange meet-up and it was slightly embarrassing turning up armed with China's best plastic weapon creation but what can you do.
The grandma turned up with cat, skull and tombstone biscuit cutters which would then be decorated as a competition later. I also whipped up a more gory than intended red jelly with floating sweets, it didn't come out of the mold in one piece so really did look like entrails.
The kids really went to town with their costumes and I raided their fancy dress box for a pirate jacket and skull and crossbones scarf. Even Nana the dog was dressed up, albeit temporarily before she realised putting up with the costume would not result in enough food treats to make it worthwhile. More competitions included acting out a horror story in teams and I was paired with the boy and his friend. I had little to no clue what was going on but seen as the plot seemed to mostly involve fighting and me making a fool of myself I was able to muddle through. My team were very understanding of me and morale was high with constant high-fives. We even won the biscuit decorating competition.
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| My team |
Treat-o-treating is yet to really take off here and apparently in the past the mum has handed out sweets to the neighbours in the afternoon so they're prepared to give them to kids later in the evening. The party headed off after dinner into the neighbourhood and had some success so their mission to bring Halloween to Spain is making progress!
After all the excitement of Halloween it was time for a more relaxing weekend. I popped over to my friend's beach town and managed to fit in a bit of sunbathing before this omnious cloud reached us and we had a lovely lunch at a friends' flat. Sunday meant making the most of the sun on the beach again, we're in November and people are still swimming in the sea. There was also time to add to my reputation as the crazy British girl as I stopped to take pictures of flowers and tripped up a teenager. My CELTA course starts tomorrow bright and early, which will be a bit of a shock to the system!
