The Beach, Montserrat, and Getting Lost

Well friends, today marks three weeks since I got here. It's strange that it's only been that long, since it feels like I've been here forever. Maybe it has something to do with jumping from winter straight into what feels like almost summer to me, or just the fact that I still can't believe I'm here and everywhere I go seems surreal to me, but something strange has happened to my sense of time. Anyway, whether I feel like this was week three or not, it was a good week,complete with a trip to the beach, and to Montserrat, and oh yeah, me getting lost. 

A friend and I ventured to the beach on Thursday after class, and it was beautiful. Our plan was to sit on the beach and read, but we ended up getting there just before sunset. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to read on the beach though, because I can't stop staring at it. The sea is just so big, and I can't get over how big it is, so I just keep looking at it. My fascination with the sea could be as problematic as reading, however, because while we were watching the waves, we almost got robbed. We were talking and I happened to look to the side a little bit, and I saw this hand reaching toward our bags. I jumped and screamed a little because I'm jumpy I guess, and then the kid pretended that he was just seeing if we had any cigarettes. Yeah right. Apparently 99% of the robbing that goes on in Barcelona is the sneaky kind of stealing, not the violent kind, but still, not cool. I guess I'll have to be careful not to relax too much or get too absorbed in anything when I go to the beach, but I still loved being there, and I think I'll be going back there quite a bit. 

I took Friday afternoon/evening just to relax, which meant watching House and Chuck and The Pianist in Spanish, and on Saturday some friends and I set out for Montserrat. I saw Montserrat from the plane on the way in to Barcelona, and decided I had to go there. Montserrat literally means "serrated mountain," and that's a good way to describe it. Here's a picture from the plane:

We took a cable car up to the Monastery and then took something else a little higher up, had a picnic, and then went on a hike from there. From the top we had a 360 degree view. We could see Barcelona, and the Pyrenees Mountains off in the distance all covered with snow. From the top we took another path down toward the monastery and went down tons and tons of stairs. We were lucky to have decided to go up first and then to the monastery, because otherwise we would have been going up all those stairs instead of down. We walked through the monastery and that was beautiful too. When we got back to Barcelona we went to a little, very Spanish cafe, and ate some churros con chocolate, which proved to be a very good ending to a very good day. 

On to Sunday. The morning was awesome. I went with a couple of friends to a little church that we had found online, and it was wonderful. It's called Iglesia Evangelical de la Gracia (Evangelical Church of Grace), and it's probably about the size of my church in Rifle. The sermon was in Spanish and I understood everything he said (yay!). Some of the songs were in Catalan, but it was cool because they were songs that I knew. We sang "Mighty to Save," "Amazing Grace," "Above All," and a couple of other songs that I hadn't heard before. They had an open prayer time, and it was really beautiful to hear people praying in Spanish. We took communion, and after the service we were greeted very warmly by lots of people, with a kiss on each cheek, like they do in Spain, and they made sure that we stayed for a fellowship lunch/dinner. The only problem with the dinner was that we were eating and talking for so long that I was late for my plans that I had that afternoon. I was going to meet up with some people and go see Silvia (my "guardian angel") in her hometown. I was going to be late so I told them to go on without me and I'd catch up. Bad idea. I ended up buying a ticked for the right train, but then getting on the wrong train, which I didn't find out until the guy came by to check our tickets. After a few efforts to try to meet up with people in various places, I ended up just getting on a train (the right one, luckily) back to Barcelona. I figured that was better than getting more lost. On the bright side, the view from the train was beautiful- the sea on one side, and pretty Spanish countryside on the other.

We officially finished our 2-week intensive Spanish class last Friday, and tomorrow, our real classes start-Ah!!! I'm not sure that anyone from my program is in my first class tomorrow morning (panorama of contemporary and modern Spanish lit), so I might be the only international student. I'm a little nervous, but also really excited to see if I can do it. We'll see how it goes!