Glimpse of the Costa Brava

Hi friends,

I meant to tell you about this earlier, but I had two finals this week, so my time got eaten up by studying. Now that they are done (woohoo!!) I can take some time to write. Last weekend, I discovered possibly my new favorite place in the world: a little town on the Costa Brava called Cadaqués. It's gorgeous. It's situated on the shore of a little cove on Cap de Creus (cap=cape), with foothills of the Pyreness behind it. All of the buildings are matching white-washed stucco, connected by narrow, winding cobblestone streets. Ahhh I just loved it.

My friend and I decided to go there and back in one day, which was a little crazy because its a 3+ hour trip one way, but we made it just fine. We got there and ate lunch on the beach, and then went on a little hike around part of the cape. We thought we were lost at times, but luckily the path did make a circle back to Cadaqués, and we made it back all in one piece. At that point we were really hot and thirsty so we got popsicles and water and cooled off in the shade. Then we wandered through the streets for a while before heading back to catch the bus.

Here are some pictures:

Driving over the mountains to get there

possibly the three happiest kids I've ever seen

So yeah, that was my glimpse of Cadaqués. It's also pretty famous in the art world, because Salvador Dalí spent a lot of time there and used it as a setting for many of his paintings. 

Earlier in the week my Catalan language and culture class went on a field trip that was pretty awesome, and definitely worth mentioning here. We went to my professor, Laia's, home town to see a Castellers practice and visit a Gigants (giants) factory. Castellers are teams that compete in making human towers, the tallest of which is 10 levels high I think. I've seen them perform as well and they're pretty awesome to watch. Laia actually grew up being a part of the team, so she knew a lot of the people there and introduced us to some of her friends. Gigants are another Catalan tradition. They're basically big replicas of people are used in parades. Each Catalan town has it's own set of Gigants. They're of fictional characters, famous people, or just normal people from the town. One of Laia's friends is from a family with a long history of Gigant making, owning one of three Gigant factories in Catalunya (and probably in the world). He was really nice, and cute, I might add, and he showed us how they make the faces and the clothes, and even let us try some of them on and dance while he played the accordian. It was really a really cool experience, and I was also pretty excited that he explained everything in Catalan and I understood it. Here are some pictures:

Gigants

Castellers

the factory

As of today I'm officially done with 2 classes and have just one final paper and one final exam left. I have a friend from Vandy coming to visit me this weekend (yay!) so I'm excited to get to show him around Barcelona   and take him to my church on Sunday. Then I will only have two weeks left before I leave for home!

Fins aviat!
Kori

Hello Everyone!

This past week, Barcelona became league champion (in soccer, of course) for the third year in a row, and on Friday night there was a big celebration/parade. The team took a tour from the port to their stadium in a double decker bus with an open top, and tons of people came out to see them. I went with a couple of friends and we saw them go by once, then took a short cut to get ahead of them again, then walked/ran alongside the bus until they got to the stadium. It was fun to see the players up close and to see all the Barça fans going crazy. Here are some pictures:

On Saturday I went with my friend, Katie, to Figueres to see the Dali Museum. Figueres is about 2 hours away by train, and this time, the ride was quite comfortable. We decided to get on the train a stop earlier so that we could get seats. We did, and we had a very nice train ride talking and listening to our ipods and watching the Spanish countryside go by. The Dali museum in Figueres was definitely worth seeing, even though I am not a huge fan of Salvador Dali. However we had just learned about him in my Catalan art class, and it was very interesting to see his works and the museum that he designed for them. Here it is from the outside:

I had a great morning at church today. Our pastor preached on A Church with a Passion for the Church, talking about seeing the church as God sees it, loving it like He loves it, and serving and loving one another in and through the local church. I realized that this is something that my church here is really good at, and am so happy to have been a part of it for a while here. Tonight the youth pastor who is also a singer is performing the songs from his new CD as the last part of the celebration of the church's 6 year anniversary. 

Well, things are winding down here. I have one and half papers left to write, and three final exams left to go in the next four weeks. Apart from that, I'm planning my last few weekends, the thing that I'm most excited about being a trip to the Pyrenees, hopefully complete with a hike that crosses the border into France!

Well, that's all for now. Hope you all are well!

Love, 

Kori

Hello All!

First of all, happy Mother's day to all the mom's who are reading this. Thank you so much for all that you do and I hope you have a wonderful day celebrating. Last weekend was Mother's Day in Spain, so I thought of you twice:)

The past two weeks have been a good balance of productive and relaxing. I got a few beach days in, spent some time with friends from my program and friends from my church, and have also gotten a good amount of work done. It's weird to schoolwork to do when all my Vandy friends are done with finals and celebrating the beginning of their summer break. Unfortunately, I wont be finished until June 9th this year. Ugh! Oh well, I guess I can't complain too much. I am, after all, in Spain, and I'm excited to have 5 more weeks to explore and enjoy this country.

Yesterday, my friend Katie and I took a trip to Girona, which is about an hour and twenty minutes away from Barcelona by train. The train ride was, unfortunately, really unpleasant. It was packed with people, and we had to stand in the aisle packed like sardines. It got hot, and a girl almost passed out. They really shouldn't sell more tickets that what they have room for on those trains, but anyway, we arrived safely and were very happy to have some fresh air once we started walking around the city. Girona is probably one of the prettiest cities in Catalunya. It's surrounded by hills and still has parts of the city wall from medieval times, or at least reconstructions of it, that you can walk along and look out over the city. Yesterday was the first day of a celebration there called Temps de Flors (time for flowers, or something like that), where all the public areas and some private homes opened up their gardens and patios all decorated really elaborately with flowers. That made a really pretty city even prettier, and despite a little bit of rain we had a really good time walking around and seeing as much as we could. Here are some pictures:

flowers up the steps to the Cathedral

display of flowers inside the old Arab bathhouses

part of the old city wall

Well I hope you all are well, and I look forward to seeing you this summer in Colorado, or this fall in Nashville, and in the meantime I will focus on my classes and enjoy my last few weekends in Spain.