barcelona, week 1

as i write, school has started again (sigh) and i have been back for a few weeks, and looking at ben’s constantly updated blog i felt convicted to at last start informing the world of what went on in barcelona. i shall do it in bits so that i actually get something posted...

on june 28^th i parted company with my honey at edinburgh airport and, after an uneventful journey, arrived in barcelona for a 6 week intensive spanish course. my goals:

· to complete the required hours of a language course and family homestay so that the general teaching council of scotland would grant me a double amount of “residency time” (the time they require you to live in a country before they let you teach its language). thus they should accredit me 12 weeks for this sojourn.

· to encourage and support the little mission team of my church in barcelona

· to do some research on gaudí and the modernisme architectural movement for a paper for my spanish diploma

· to soak up enough warmth and sun to last me until next summer

the school had set up a host “family,” which consisted of one very friendly and chatty widow named ana, whose two sons are grown and have moved away but visit frequently. she is not alone, though – her big dog darcoff is her dear very spoilt child, who barks enviously and ear-piercingly whenever ana has a more than 15 second conversation with her guests. there was another girl staying for just 2 weeks, taking spanish at another school: katy, from germany. we only occasionally slipped into german! ana has a lovely terrace just outside my bedroom window where we had all our meals..

i found this lovely park nearby to pray in, parc turo:

monday, june 29^th: to my great encouragement i was placed in the most advanced spanish class at the don quijote language school. my class consisted of mainly chinese girls, so i felt like i was back in california. that evening i went to the university zone to meet up with the local disciples and go out sharing our faith. it was challenging to do so after being rather out of practice, and yet the language tied my tongue more than that. it would take me one or two more evenings to feel fairly comfortable about how to talk about God in spanish. but it was a relief meeting up with my spiritual brothers and sisters and immediately having friends and like-minded people in my midst.

tuesday, june 30^th: after class i joined a tour to freixenet winery. freixenet is the world’s biggest producer of cava, the spanish answer to champagne. though i’m not a huge bubbly fan, i love the process. they had funny bottle-shaped cars out front...

this tour was interesting because after showing us the romantic original way of making cava, and the different grapes and adding the yeast etc, they showed us the modern, very un-romantic machinery:
but i found a nice wee bottle of wine to take home, so i was satisfied:

wednesday, july 1st: after class i visited the mighty corte ingles, the massive department store which dominates spain. i indulged in a couple of bright and colourful gifts by a spanish designer named agatha ruiz de la prada. later i discovered that el corte ingles – meaning “the english cut” – was originally a tailor shop, and the entrepreneurial tailor who at first specialized in this particular cut of men’s suits managed to branch out into, well, everything known to man!

friday, july 5th: this afternoon i took the opportunity to wander the famous passeig de gracia and look at the beautiful modernist architecture. i took lots of pictures and went into the heavily scaffold-covered casa amatller. this delightful house was built by the third generation of successful chocolatiers, importing their cocoa beans from spain’s colonies and producing chocolate right in barcelona. what i love about modernist (modernisme) architecture is the attention to detail. a parallel movement to arts & crafts, jugendstil and art deco, they believed that things should be both practical and beautiful, neither aspect being sacrificed. modernisme is also very colourful, which i love!