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