Feliz Día de Los Tres Reyes!

¡Hola familia y amigos!

¿Qué tal? I was considering writing part of this in Spanish and then translating it into English for those of you who know little or no Spanish, but I decided that was too much work. Besides, I still make so many mistakes in my Spanish, so it would be quite divertido for those of you who know Spanish like the back of your hand. Anyways, it's been a while since I've been on here. I'll brief you on Christmas, New Year's Eve, my break from school, Three Kings Day and life in general.

Christmas: I don't know if I said this before, but Christmas here is not as much about Santa (though Santa's prevalence is increasing as time goes by) and presents as in the States. The traditional Christmas in Catalunya starts with the kids waking up, hitting the Cagatio with a stick while singing a song about him pooping good presents for them (very random and hilarious). Each child receives one or two presents from the cagatio and then the family gets ready to have a super long lunch with the family. The traditional Christmas lunch is a sort of soup or stew that is absolutely fantastic! The broth reminds me of chicken broth and has a bunch of regular bowl-shaped noodles. All of this is cooked with (but served separately from) sausage (regular and black), chicken, pork, carrots, cabbage, garbanzo beans, and many other ingredients. If this were a tradition with my family, I would ask that we have it more than once a year: similar to how my (Pitt) family hosts two Thanksgivings a year (one in Nov and one in March). I have to say that I am quite sad that I'm missing both. Anyways, I ate this meal on both the 25th and the 26th of December with both sides of the family. I really had a wonderful time, especially since both families really put forth an effort to include me and talk with me in Castellano. Everyone associated with this family speaks Catalan as their primary language (everyone except for the children knows Castellano as well) and so it is very hard for them to break from what they're talking about to speak to me in Castellano. I've heard from a few people that once you establish a relationship with someone in one language, it feels uncomfortable and awkward to speak with that person in another language. I wouldn't know how that feels since I am only fluent in English, but I have no problems believing that. Entonces, most of the family get togethers involve everyone speaking in Catalan and every once in a while, talking to me in Castellano. I don't mind. I've actually started picking up on quite a few Catalan phrases, but I can't spell them worth anything since Catalan doesn't read the same way it is pronounced, so I won't attempt to type them.

New Years (El Nocheviejo – “the old night”): At first, I was beginning to feel lame because it was only two days before and I had no idea what I was going to do. My two choices were either a church party or hanging out with the kids I take care of and their friends and family. Luckily, at the last minute, I received an invitation from some friend from school to go to a party at one of their apartments. It was such a fun and interesting night. Probably the most hilarious part of the night was the fact that there were around 40 people and over half were men… and only two of those men were straight. It was probably the nicest group of guys that I’ve ever met and hung out with. The apartment belonged to a gay couple who had decorated it way better than I could have for the New Year. It was sort of a potluck, so we all brought our own dishes and drinks… and there was more than enough for all of us. The fun Spanish tradition for the New Years is eating 12 grapes on each of the 12 strokes of midnight (12 seconds). This is actually a lot harder than it sounds because in Spain, they do not sell seedless grapes. The cool thing about this tradition is the fact that its 100 year anniversary was this year. Apparently, the tradition started in 1908/9 when there was an surplus of grapes and the Spanish government suggested that people eat the 12 grapes for good luck at midnight. It stuck and now people continue to do it today.

Día de los Tres Reyes (Three Kings Day) – aka. The Epiphany: This is a holiday celebrated on the 6th of January in Spain and some countries in South America. Instead of Santa Clause, the children write letters to, take pictures with, and look forward to the Three Kings bringing presents for the children. Just in case you are not up on your Bible knowledge, the three kings are derived from the Nativity story and the familiar song – “We three kings of Orient are bearing gifts we’ve traveled afar. Field and fountain… following yonder star”. The three kings followed a star that brought them to Bethlehem to the manger where baby Jesus Christ was born. The kings came with gifts of frank, incense, and myrrh, among other things, probably. Anyways, this is the big day that the children look forward to because it is the equivalent of our Christmas in the States. The children wake up early, eager and excited to run to the living room and open the gifts. This is what occurred on my Three Kings Day: 8:00 The children woke up and wanted to open presents (pretty late, if you ask me. I was expecting 7 AM), we opened presents (I received some cool stuff from my host family – a picture holder, bookmark, hat/scarf thing, and pouch) ate breakfast, got the kids dressed and then went on our rounds to the relatives’ houses in the area. Each relative (aunts/uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, etc..) had presents for the kids… they definitely had an amazing Christmas if you ask me. We visited relatives until around 2 PM, when we made our way to another relative’s house for the traditional super long Spanish lunch and “invisible friend” gift exchange (pick a name out of a hat and you only have to buy presents for that one person – brilliant idea!). My invisible friend gave me a flashlight and some heavenly tasting chocolates. Mmmmmm… The Spaniards sure know how to eat well. ;)

Aside from the holidays, I’ve done a tiny bit of traveling. My friend, Deborah, from church (and Montserrat) invited me on some more excursions. We went to Plaza España (absolutely beautiful!) and Terragona. Terragona is a city about an hour south of BCN that is famous for its Roman ruins. We made a day trip out of it and really had a great time. The best part about it was that we had our own personal Spanish tour guide who we randomly met just after exiting the train. We were looking at the view of the ocean from a tall platform when I saw a guy by himself with a camera around his neck, which to me automatically pins someone as a tourist. Seeing this as an opportunity to meet someone new, I asked him in Spanish where he was from. Deborah and I found out that he was from BCN and was studying architecture in a university in Terragona and was just out exploring on his day off. We parted and then ran into him about ten minutes later, and then began our tour of the city (in Spanish too!) with someone who really knew what he was talking about. It was a beautiful city, but definitely only a day trip. Also, it cost money to enter the Roman ruins, which was sort of a bummer. We decided to just view them from the outside.

In other news, I just booked a weekend flight to Switzerland to go to a friend’s wedding in May. I’m stoked!! I’m also beginning to plan a week long traveling trip with my friend Linnea in April. We’re planning on seeing Paris and Rome… and that’s as far as we’ve gotten. I still have yet to plan my Madrid and Southern Spain trips. I’ll do that soon. I’m so excited to start traveling! It’s a little nerve-wracking though. I’m having a hard time figuring out my Switzerland trip since I cannot understand the language on the websites for the metro/trains and hotels. I think it may be either German or French. I’m not sure. Haha.

This last weekend, I checked out a new church that I ended up really liking. It is a Spanish speaking church lead by a pastor from Colombia. The cool connection that I have with this church is (and pay attention, it is a little complicated): I have a friend in Seattle, Cesar, from Colombia who I met in choir, he grew up in a church in Colombia, the pastor of that church has a wife, the wife has two sisters who are also married to pastors, one of the sisters is married to the pastor of the church in Barcelona, they had three children, Cesar met one of the sons in Colombia a year ago when they were both visiting and contacted him recently when he found out that I would be moving here. The pastor’s son gave Cesar all of the church contact info and a few months later, here I am. Cool, huh? For the first time, I felt like I could follow a sermon that was in Spanish. From what I understood of the sermon, he has a good theological and Biblical backing and isn’t teaching anything weird. :) Afterwards, the pastor’s son invited me to join his fiancée and family at the pastor’s house for lunch. It was amazing! The people, the food, the Spanish was amazing! After so many family parties that involved Catalan being primarily spoken around the table, this lunch was like a breath of fresh air. I’m planning on going back to that church this weekend.

Today, school started back up again. It is great to be back and be with friends, but a little frustrating at the same time. I’ve forgotten a lot of Spanish and we just learned a new tense (Imperative) that has a ton of irregulars. I still have subjunctive to learn… which means that I have a long ways to go with my Spanish. I’ll learn it “poco a poco” (little by little), as everyone keeps telling me.

Lastly… IT SNOWED IN BARCELONA!!! It didn’t stick, but it was awesome to see snow coming down and then admire the beautiful snow-capped mountains and hills. :) Mount Tibidabu was absolutely gorgeous with its castle-like cathedral on top of a snow-covered hill.

Vale, it is actually very late for me now, but I wanted to get this out since I’ve been working on this for a while (with many interruptions and pauses). I apologize for the wait and I’ll make sure to post pictures soon. I hope this finds all of you very well and jolly after all of the holidays. Take care! Miss you lots!

Love Linnell