A Visit to Montjuïc

{{Si el honor y el valor valen más que las personas, es que no hemos aprendido nada}}

Monday I didn't have French class due to Semaine Blanche (a French national holiday), and being as that's my only class on Monday, I had the day completely free and decided to explore. I hadn't yet been to the mountain of Montjuïc, which boasts an interesting array of sights, so I decided to enjoy a leisurely day walking there and enjoy the fantastic views out over the city from the top. When I arrived I was right by the Fundació Joan Miró, but I wanted to walk outside, so that will wait for another day. I wandered down the old gardens of Montjuïc--by the Greek ampitheater and garden, the beautiful old stairs through the trees, the cascading fountains that surround you with the constant pleasant hum of running water, making my way up to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. This important museum is located in the spectacular and dramatic Palau Nacional, which was constructed for the 1929 Worlds' Fair. This magnificent building is located at the top of a grand staircase from the Plaça Espanya, and overwhelms you with your first vista of its stately towers and firm presence of "being". I didn't go in because I still wanted to explore the other beautiful monuments of Montjuïc outside. Plus I bought a pass that gives me one entry to each of the 7 main museums of Barcelona--el Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Museu Picasso, Fundació Caixa Catalunya la Pedrera, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, and Fundació Joan Miró--for 6 months, so lots of time still to see the amazing exhibits and Art that Barcelona has to offer. Plus, for being a student at the University of Barcelona, I get discounts to several other museums in Barcelona, along with discounts at various restaurants, for concerts, and other attractions.

I walked alongside MNAC and found myself near the old Botanical Garden of Barcelona, a pretty little site, but it seemed rather run-down. After taking a little stroll through the garden, I wandered up the adjacent stairs and by the torch-holding man to one of the other great attractions of Montjuïc: the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 Olympics. It's an impressive, stately building named for Lluís Companys, the president of Catalunya at the time of the Spanish Civil War. After the war, when Franco came to power, he was exiled, but was captured and extradited to Spain by Nazis. He was sentenced to death by the firing squad and was executed at Montjuïc Castle on October 14, 1940. In front of the building is a great open plaza with an interesting, twisting Telefónica tower designed by Santiago Calatrava, a huge fountain, and rows of yellow columns. I loved walking through the plaza, imagining it 18 years ago, packed with excited tourists, anxious athletes, people from all over the world filled with hopes and expectations for the events and their teams.

I followed the road from the Olympic Stadium a bit further in the direction of Montjuïc Castle and found myself by the new Botanical Garden of Barcelona. The entrance was only a couple of euros, and well worth it. The garden features sections dedicated to the different Mediterranean-like climates of the world--Chile, California, Australia, South Africa, North Africa--with a plethora of paths to wander and explore. Plus there are magnificent views of Barcleona from the garden. I loved meandering slowly through it, imagining how spectacular it will be to return in April or May and see everything in bloom.

Next came a ride on the bus to my last stop: Montjuïc Castle itself. It's a stately building, full of presence, commanding and intimidating. It was much bigger than I expected and I spent several hours wandering through and around it, taking in the strategic views over the Mediterranean and all of Barcelona from the top, eyeing the cold, hard forms of machine guns against the setting sun, feeling the history in the stones. Fortifications were first constructed on this area in 1640 and it was converted into a castle in 1694. It has long been a highly-contested and desired point during wars in the Barcelona area. After the Spanish Civil War, it was converted into a military prison, and many strongly outspoken opponents of the Nationalist government of Franco were executed there. It functioned as a military prison until 1960, and in 1963 it was converted into a military museum by the orders of Franco. He ceded the grounds to the city of Barcelona, but the museum itself remained property of the Spanish Government until 2007, when the entirety of Montjuïc became property of Barcelona and Catalunya. It was a moving experience, walking around this massive building at sunset, knowing all the sorrows and bloodshed that it had faced throughout the years.

The castle completed my "Montjuïc day" and I took the bus back down to Plaça Espanya and headed home satisfied by another day of wandering and getting better acquainted with my city.

The First Stirrings of a Barcelona Spring

{{Sientes por dentro que todo se va...hacía el sol...hacía el sol...}}

Spring is starting to show it's face here in Barcelona and everyone is reveling in the change from constant clouds and chilly breezes. This entire week we've had beautiful sunny days with cerulean blue skies, playful spring breezes, and the feeling of warm rays of Mediterranean sun kiss your head. It's been wonderful not to have to drag layers around and cuddle my neck into scarves all the time; in fact, if I try wearing my thicker jacket out to class, I have to take it off as soon as I start walking or I completely overheat. Today I even was able to only wear a hoodie over my T-shirt when I went to French class. Barcelonans, I have noted, seem to operate like Peruvians, in that they believe that you should wear a heavy jacket always if it's technically the season of "winter". People look less miserable to be bundled up, but I still see lots of people in the street wearing down jackets, wool scarves, and layers of long sleeved shirts. Don't know how they do it!

The nights are still very cold and remind you without a doubt that it is winter, however. As soon as the sun sets, or if you find yourself walking in a shady spot...make sure you've followed the Peruvian rule to take a jacket with you no matter what and abrígate, or you'll be an unhappy camper. We're still a ways a way from Barcelona-beach-weather, without a doubt; spring's only just putting out her feelers and teasing us with some beautiful sunshine. I'm sure I'll be whipping out my warm scarves and long sleeves again soon. But in the meantime, I'm loving the sun!

Let the Pre-Dartmouth Brain Training Begin!

{{Hoy vas a descubrir que el mundo es sólo para ti}}

My official training for my brain for Dartmouth has now begun. Starting last week, I added Catalan into my schedule and I began my classes in Spanish Cinema and Works Written by Women the week before. Now I have more work and I love it! I got to pick every single one of my classes, so they all cover subjects that interest me and I want to learn about. And it's fun because the different types of classes introduce me to a wide variety of people. All the students in French are from Barcelona, mostly in the end of their university career or adults taking this class on the side during their free time from their job. My fellow Catalan-students are all South Americans, the majority in their 20s who need to take it for university studies (since classes in universities in Catalonia can be taught in Spanish or Catalan, though you can answer in whichever language you are more comfortable working in), and some are older adults who are taking it for better work prospects. My fellow students for Women Writers and Spanish Cinema are almost all from the U.S. (a few from other countries in Europe, along with a few Japanese and Chinese, but I was surprised by how few non-Americans there are!). I get to learn about quite a few cultures every day!

My schedule, however, is slightly unevenly distributed at the moment:

Monday: French 1 (2 hours)

Tuesday: Basic Catalan (3 hours), French 1 (2 hours), 2-hour pause, Women Writers (1.5 hours, in Spanish)

Wednesday: French 1 (2 hours)

Thursday: Basic Catalan (3 hours), French 1 (2 hours), 2-hour pause, Women Writers (1.5 hours, in Spanish)

Friday: French 1 (2 hours); every other Friday I have Spanish Cinema (3 hours)

Because it's only my Tuesdays and Thursdays that are super busy, I still have lots of other days of the week to explore Barcelona and meet up with my friends from different courses. Tuesdays and Thursdays, however, are the days that most challenge my brain because of all the languages I have to run through without much of a pause. In Catalan class I'm learning Catalan, but during the pauses or when we ask a question about something we don't know, it's all in Spanish. Then I go directly to French (talking with friends in Spanish between the two classes), where we ask our questions or clarify things in a mixture of Spanish and French (as much French as possible, but it's hard!). After I have my Women Writers class, which is carried out in Spanish, but everyone speaks English amongst themselves. When I go back home, Guillem, Carla, and I speak a mixture of English, Spanish, and Catalan around the house, we watch the news in Catalan, Catalan comedy programs, a Catalan telenovela, and/or Spanish programs. Anything in Catalan has subtitles for me, but even within those programs they often switch back into Spanish when they do a political gag making fun of Spanish politics. Those are big brain-exercise days!

I'm very happy with the amount of work I'm doing. I still have plenty of time to explore the city, do my studies, and meet up with friends, balancing the cultural part of my stay here with the intellectual part. Prove that Dartmouth students can indeed do everything! ;)

The City of Gaudí

{{Has nacido artista lo sé}}

Barcelona, without a doubt, is the city of Gaudí. His works, his vision, his style, they all permeate the streets and core of Barcelona. You can feel his presence as you walk down Las Ramblas, down the Passeig de Gràcia, around la Plaça de Catalunya, in everything from the benches on the sidewalk, to the patterns on the tiles of the sidewalk pavement, to the curling, fantastical iron streetlamps, to the curving, strange, brightly-colored modernist buildings that he created. I have yet to see all of Gaudí’s creations in Barcelona, but the spectacular ones that I have seen so far—la Sagrada Família, Casa Batlló, Casa Milà, and Parc Güell—have intrigued and amazed me, and I cannot wait to go back to experience them even more.

I pass la Sagrada Família every day on my bus to el Institut Français and each time I see something new and unique in this church that I hadn’t noted before. The meanings of the variances in the styles of the different façades change each time I explore it more. It’s not something I will ever get used to seeing in my daily life; it’s just as special each time I try and find a deeper, personal meaning in this architect’s work.

The interior of Casa Batlló is something I could come back to over and over again to experience the simple beauty and well-planned architecture of the interior passageway around the stairs. It’s magnificently lit by a huge skylight, with windows to almost every room in the house set into the open space below the skylight. The windows grow smaller as you climb towards the skylight, so the upper levels are not overwhelmed by sunlight but the lower levels still receive plenty of natural light, an element so important to Gaudí. Standing in the stairwell is like standing in a column of light and water, with light shades of blue-grey-white in the lower levels that slowly give way to sky blue, then turquoise, then deep cobalt at the very top by the skylight. I could spend an entire day in that stairwell, watching how the shades of blue changed with differing intensities of sunlight.

Gaudí’s incredible use of color, his ability to craft everyday materials, such as wrought iron, into curling, fantastical shapes, his incorporation of a variety of natural shapes and textures, from waves to a lizard’s scales to the curving lines of an old, stunted tree, amazes me. The structured columns and brilliant mosaic tiles of Parc Güell fit perfectly in with the trees and winding paths, the structured elements of the park balanced perfectly against the natural ones. The curving walls and flower-and-vine-like iron terraces of Casa Milà make a large building much less intimidating than it could be and provide a bit of nature-like rest for my eyes amongst so many large, clearly mechanical buildings of the city that surround it.

An architect doesn’t create a piece for himself; he creates it for those who will see it in the future, use it, experience it, each one moved by it in their own unique manner. I feel very lucky to be able to experience the spectacular works of Gaudí over and over to continue to find my personal meaning in his work and explore the nuances of his style.

Urubamba Update

{{La chica vale un Perú}}

Hey everyone!

I wanted to put up a few photos of Uurbamba post-flooding now that the waters are down and the lives of all residents have turned to repairing, rebuilding, and attempting to move forward with their lives to a better place. There is a lot of work to be done and the government still hasn't done much for them besides make promises for future aid, but the citizens of the Sacred Valley are working together to help those who lost everything. If you look in the comments on my last post, you can see several ways to help from outside of Peru. The main one is through the Spirits of the Earth Foundation, to whom you can send a donation via PayPal. Just because the worst of the flooding has passed does not mean we can forget about the affected Peruvians; these floods were the equivalent of Hurricane Katrina for them.

PS: The quote under the photos is a saying in Spain that means that someone is very beautiful. The Spaniards said this after conquering Peru because it was beautiful and brought them great wealth (through its silver mines). So, if you are called to be of equal worth as Peru, you are very valuable and beautiful. Peru is beautiful and special, so we want to help it recover the best it can!