Thursday I had another day of class--my first time in my advanced grammar class called Morfosintaxis. I really like the teacher (I have had other grammar classes from him already during orientation) and like all the other classes, I am looking forward to this one.
On Friday we had to take our first test over the history class we took during our trip to Leon and Burgos. I think it went pretty well, as it was just mainly an essay explaining the various Gothic architectural elements we saw in the places we visited.
Montserrat:
For Saturday, I made plans to go up to a mountain close to Barcelona called Montserrat. I let a few people know about it, and left an open invitation to anyone who wanted to join me on the day trip. As it turned out, we had a group of 9 students go, and I ended up playing tour guide because I was the only one who had done all the research on getting there and what was actually up there, but that was OK and fun for the most part.
There was a lot involved in getting up there: first I took the metro to the station where the Montserrat train left from, then we took a train that went to the base of the mountain (about 50km outside of Barcelona), where we got on a mountain tram that took us half way up the mountain to the basilica and monastery of Montserrat. Montserrat is actually the oldest music school in Europe, and has a world-famed boys choir that puts on a free concert daily at 1pm, but sadly we couldn't see them because there was a wedding going on in the church instead. We did get to see the inside of the church, and waited in line for 40 minutes to see the black Madonna--I will explain this in the next paragraph--and went into the art museum. The museum was a lot of fun, as it had paintings by Picasso, Monet, Dali and quite a few others.
The black Madonna is a statue of the patron saint of Cataluna, and is particularly interesting because she is black-skinned. The story goes that she was not origionally made black, that she became black from the smoke from all of the prayer candles that were burned under her, but now she is just assumed to be a black saint and is a source of pride in the region. I'm not actually positive, but depending on who you ask she might be the only black saint ordained by the Catholic church.
Anyways, after visiting the church and the museum, we took another mountain tram up to the top of the mountain. The whole think was socked in for the most part by clouds. Although this took away from the view, it added a mystical or eerie air to the place. We hiked around for a while, going to a few of the small peaks and enjoying the cool air.
Click this link to see my photos of Montserrat:
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| Montserrat Sept. 20 |
Festival La Merce:
After we got back from Montserrat, we each went back to hour host families for dinner, then I met up with three others to take in some of the festivities of La Merce. This is a city-wide festival that goes on from Friday through Wednesday--every major plaza or attraction hosts free concerts and events all week. It is really something to see. For the second night in a row, we went down to the beach to watch fireworks. After we saw the fireworks Saturday night, we found a little cafe that specializes in chocolate. They offer 23 different types of chocolate, which comes in a cup, but you eat it with a spoon--the consistency is something between pudding and hot cocoa.
Tomorrow I plan to take in a few more of the free concerts or events, and see what else the day throws my way.
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