I'm getting used to the rhythm of life here and the cycle of work in the week. It's very pleasant, and the romantic aspects of farming come through very strong in all of the tasks here. That might not be totally clear, imagine with me getting up every morning before the sun is up (not a hard thing to imagine I'm sure) and quickly throwing more layers on before going upstairs to the kitchen, partly because you want breakfast, and partly because it is the only room in the house with a wood stove, and therefore infinitely warmer than the rest of the house. After taking your time with your coffee and muesli, it is time to work, and you descend old stone stairs into the cellar, which is home to not only the tools you will need but a shop stocked with beautiful fruits and veggies and preserves. As you step outside to begin work, the last blush of dawn is still painting the mountains across the valley a slightly rosy color, and making the green of the fields even more brilliant. The air is crisp as you grab a wheelbarrow and follow the boss down the hill to the whichever field needs tending today, and know that by the time two o'clock rolls around, you will be tired and dirty, but that a hot, homecooked lunch followed by a siesta await you. This is the romance of farming, and this is what this place has given me a taste of.
My favorite jobs are always harvesting things, especially the giant heads of broccoli we collected on Friday. For those of you who don't share my passion for broccoli, try to imagine your own favorite vegetable. But anyway, we went down to the broccoli fields this week to find that the 3 days of rain we had had put the broccoli into overdrive and some of these heads of broccoli weighed over a kilo (2.2 lbs)! That's a head of broccoli the size of a dinner plate that I got to cut myself and take up to the kitchen and enjoy. There is nothing better than spending an hour harvesting in the field and being able to look at the tower of boxes filled with fresh beautiful vegetables that you just collected. I will really miss having such a tangible product to my work.
We have been lucky enough to have a few other romanticized excursions, including a night of traditional Catalonian dancing. Gerard took myself and Marisa up into a little village in the mountains where about 40 people of all ages from the surrounds had gathered in a little pavilion to listen to live, traditional Catalan music and dance. The band consisted of three men, the leader of whom was an impressive musician who was often playing a flute with one hand and simultaneously a drum with the other. The other men played a mixture of guitars, flutes, drums, bagpipes (yes, bagpipes) and castenettes depending on the song. The dances also varied. Some of them involved the whole group dancing together in a circle sort of like a Spanish version of a line-dance, but others involved dancing in couples, for which Gerard alternated between dancing with myself and Marisa. Dancing with Gerard was really fun because he was not only a great dancer, but a great teacher. He taught me dances called "the Scottish" and the "mazurca" (there is little chance that I spelled that correctly), which were both simple to begin with but he complicated them with spins and twirls by the end. As we were driving home, Gerard also told me that I dance very well, which means I can die happy having been complimented on my dancing by a Spaniard.
Marisa and I have also been enjoying exploring some of the small towns in the area. Last week was Centelles, a really tiny but beautiful village in the mountains, and this week we went to the beach town of Sitges, a town about 30 minutes outside Barcelona by train. The beaches were wonderful, and we mostly just lay on the beach and read that afternoon before wandering around the city a bit that night and splitting a picher of sangria and some really wonderful tapas. Sitges had a quite a bit going on in addition to the beaches. There was a horror film festival going on (Jud I wish you could have been there to tell me if you had heard of any of the directors), which is supposed to be pretty legit, and we saw no less than 3 weddings. The weddings absolutely fit with the town, in fact Marisa and I were commenting on the fact that we wouldn't have minded getting married there. However, at the rate I'm going, my dream wedding would be more of a world tour with receptions in Gamla Stan, Nerja, Frigliana, and Sitges.
We were also lucky enough to convince Gerard to let us take a Thursday night off and go to the medieval town of Girona which is also about an hour outside of Barcelona. It was a truly magical little town. The whole town is made of beautiful stone buildings with narrow streets and a balconied apartments with flower pots overflowing over the railings. And, much to my delight, lots of stairs. The old wall which once enclosed the city also still stands, and in much the same way as Castillo de Gibralfaro, affords really wonderful views of the city and mountains. Marisa and I went for a really lovely walk along this wall, which terminated at an archeaological garden. Basically, it was a chamber which used to be enclosed by the wall (though I don't know what it was used for), but is now home to lots of trees and flower gardens.
Well, some time has passed since I initially wrote this post, so I figure it is high time I posted it. I promise there will be more pictures and a final post on my end adventures (and there have been quite a few) in Spain in the next week, since I will be back home then!
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