Dia de St. Jordi

La Diada de Sant Jordi, also called St. George’s day, is celebrated in Barcelona, as well as a few cities around the world, every year on April 23. This day corresponds with St. George’s death. St. George is honored in Barcelona on this day since he is the patron saint of Catalunya. Barcelona’s celebration of La Diada de Sant Jordi is quite romantic however. Prior to seeing it with my own eyes, I had heard many stories about the day from my home stay mother. She had shared with me the tradition of men buying their wives, girlfriends, or love interests roses and in return women would by their husband, boyfriend, or whatever a book. I thought this was an odd spin on the traditional U.S. Valentine’s Day that I was used to. However, La Diada de Sant Jordi caught me by surprise. Unlike valentines’ day in the U.S., where every shop, restaurant and florist has advertisements and decorations for valentines at least a month in advance, La Diada de Sant Jordi quietly approached in Barcelona. In fact, it was quite amazing to see the sheer amount of book stands and flower stands pop up all over Placa Catulunya and Rambla de Catalunya on this Saturday. It was the first real sign of spring to see thousands and thousands of red roses pop up, figuratively, all across Barcelona. But unlike Valentines Day in the U.S., which has become a commercialized holiday and done mainly to generate profit, there was still an air of innocence and tradition with La Diada de Sant Jordi. The most interesting thing I saw on this day, however, was that the selling of books and roses were not just left to merchants and vendors, but even the Partido Popular had set up a stand on Rambla de Catalunya, a seemingly strategic campaign effort close to elections.

Snails

Perhaps the most surprising cuisine I’ve come to enjoy while abroad are Caracoles, or snails. Never in my life before my tie abroad did I ever think I would ever eat a snail. In fact it was one of a few things I would have been ok with never doing once in my life. But on my weekend trip to Paris, my travel companion insisted that I try to special delicacy. Though reluctant at first, I finally gave in to the pressure and agreed to try one. When they were served they were still in their shells, though dead, and covered in a green garlic sauce. To my surprise I ended up loving them and eating a few more than my original one. In fact, I enjoyed them so much that when I traveled to Sevilla and encountered a restaurant called “Caracoles”, I knew exactly where I wanted to eat for the night. Ordering off the tapas menu, we requested a plate of caracoles, Iberian ham, green olives, and of course some nice refreshing cerveza. To our surprise though, we received a plate filled to the brim full of caracoles, rather than the ten we had received in Paris. And these were not covered in the same heavy green garlic sauce, but rather had been stemmed and soaked in a light olive oil sauce. These Spanish snails were delicious as well, but did not cover the taste of the snails as much as I had anticipated. I will certainly be more careful next time I order something so adventurous in Spain.

The Block of Discord

One of Barcelona’s biggest tourist attractions is that it is home to hundreds of examples of Modernista architecture. One of the premier and most famous gatherings of modernist architecture in the city is The Block of Discord, Illa de la Discòrdia. The Block of Discord is the name given to the buildings located between numbers 35 and 43 on Passeig de Gràcia that were designed by Barcelona’s three most prominent Modernista architects; Lluís Domènech i Montaner, designer of Casa Lleó-Morera, Antoni Gaudí, designer of Casa Batlló, and Josep Puig i Cadafalch, designer of Casa Amatller. However, these three are not the only modernista architects with a modernista building located on The Block of Discord. The fourth and designer of Casa Mulleras, situated between the other three buildings at 37 Passeig de Gràcia, is Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia. While Sagnier’s contribution is also interesting and worth looking at, the main attraction on the Block of Discord is Gaudi’s Casa Batlló. Built in the  20^th century, Casa Batlló looks like something out of a dream, rather than a building in a busy metropolitan city. The smooth and wavy façade on the first floors seem like water and the scally roof line seems as though it is the tail of a dragon. Walking through the inside gives the feeling of being in the children’s tale book Alice in Wonderland, with the arched hallways. The use of mosaic created from broken tiles, Trencadís, along the roof line and on the chimney’s is a direct link between Casa Batlló and many other of Gaudi’s works. But seeing Gaudi’s strange and beautiful style throughout a home was much more of a shock then his work in Park Guell, which seemed to blend into nature with a much smoother transition. Walking through Casa Batlló is almost an other worldly experience

The Olympic Games

In 1992 Barcelona hosted the Summer Olympics. This was a major event for a multitude of reasons. First, it was the first Olympics that no nation boycotted since the end of the Soviet Union and it was the first Olympics in which professional athletes were allowed to compete in. But even more evident than the Olympics themselves, was the atmosphere Barcelona projected as host of the Olympics. Less than two decades prior, General Francisco Franco was still in power as the dictator of Spain. The country itself was still recovering form the civil war, and was experiencing retardation of the economy, due to Franco’s isolationist approach. But in the few short years between Franco’s death in 1975 and Barcelona winning the Olympic bid in 1986, The country and the Catalan capital of Barcelona made great strides to replace itself amongst the ranks of the worlds top powers.

            The nomination of the city as possible host for the 1992 games was the spark that initiated the huge urbanization plan throughout the city. In preparation for the Olympics, Barcelona was completely transformed. The rundown and crime filled areas of El Raval and Barceloneta were cleaned up and turned into clean middle class areas. Restaurants and stores began to fill the available spaces and a new population of young people began to inhabit the areas. The orientation of the city as a whole was moved from an inward looking city to a sea facing Mediterranean city, especially with the construction of the Olympic Village and Olympic Port in the Poblenou area. On top of the renovation of the city’s most rundown areas, was the construction of new highways that ran around the city, rather than straight through it, allowing for a less congested city center and a more efficient means of delivery of goods by trucks to places throughout the city. The El Prat Airport was also completely modernized, and a second terminal was created, to facilitate an easier means for tourists to enter and leave the city.

            Another reason why the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona were so successful is due the city’s continued use of Olympic facilities long after the games. The most famous of the centers constructed for the games are on top of Montjuïc;  Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc , used for opening and closing ceremonies as well as track and field events, Palau Sant Jordi , where the American men’s Basketball “Dream Team” had their games, and Piscines Bernat Picornell, the Olympic pool. A main reason Barcelona was awarded the 1992 Olympic games, other than the fact that the then IOC president was Juan Antonio Samaranch, a native of Barcelona, is that it had already begun preparations, such as the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc, for the 1936 Olympic games which it was supposed to host, until the start of the Civil War the same year.

            The true winner of the 1992 Olympic games seems to be the city itself more so than any competitor. While there were no athletic performances for the ages from the games that have made the games unforgettable, their success seems to stem from the city’s ability to transform itself into a world city and to project Catalan culture on a global level. The true effect of the 1992 Olympic games was the ability for Barcelona to brand itself as a cosmopolitan city and to create the infrastructure to support the mass tourism it now steadily receives.               

El Call

Prior to 1492 in Spain, Catholic and Jewish cultures co-existed peacefully. But during the reign of the Isabel and Fernando, after 1492, the situation changed completely with the beginning of the Inquisition. All Jews who had not been forced to leave the peninsula, were forced to change their religion. Many of those of chose to stay in Barcelona, however, continued their Jewish religious life in secret. Due to the persecution suffered by the Jewish community, much of their cultural and artistic legacy has disappeared from the city. However, many vestiges remain, especially in the Call neighborhood, the neighborhood of the Jewish quarter.

Medieval Barcelona

Through out the Middle Ages, Barcelona was influenced by the Islamic world and Carolingian Europe. Barcelona as the capital of Catalonia, came to govern a handful of territories which included places as far away as Sicily and Athens. During the middle ages, Barcelona was an extremely important trading centre for the Mediterranean. Today, throughout El Born or La Ribera areas of the city, the remnants of these times and influences can still be seen. 
The story of medieval Barcelona is fully evident in its Romanesque and Gothic buildings. Walking through the different parts of the city, you can fully understand the various changes the city has undergone from its once walled enclosures during the M, the Palau de la Generalitat; the Royal Palace and mansions on Carrer Montcada near the now Mueso de Picasso; the Cathedral and churches, such as Santa Maria del Mar, which had close ties with the bourgeois guilds.

            The appeal of the Gothic district of Barcelona stands out even more when compared to the gird like pattern of the Eixample area. The Gothic district, composed of dozens of tiny streets, that prohibit most forms of motor vehicles, is home to some the of the city’s finest restaurants hidden on these little tiny streets. One of the most interesting differences between Barcelona’s Gothic district and the Eixample area, is the conception of space. Many of the apartments in Barcelona’s Eixample area are big and spacious, each with its own personal water closet, or even two. But the idea of space was quite different in the Gothic district. Many apartments there today share one water closet with every other apartment in the building, usually located in the basement. Another major aspect of the life of the Gothic District in the middle ages is the idea of Guilds. Guilds were groups of craftsmen that worked as both a training and apprenticeship organization as well as a labor union to protect workers rights. Throughout the Gothic District are many apartment buildings that were, at one time the residences of the workshops. The workshop and store would be on the bottom, street level. On the first floor, would be the living quarters of the owner of the guild. These floors have the biggest rooms with the highest ceilings and also the largest windows. On the floor above that would usually be the living quarters of the manager of the guild. And beyond that floor would be the living quarters of the guild workers.

            One of the biggest examples of the Midlevel Times in Barcelona, is the church of Santa Maria del Mar in Pl. del Born. Designed by the architect Berenguer de Montagut, it is a perfect example of Catalan Gothic. It is one large room, with plane looking from the outside with no spires like in traditional Gothic churches, and contains introverted, rather than flying buttresses for support.  Santa Maria del Mar was the church in which the sailors and merchants of Gothic Barcelona worshipped, not those of the upper classes.

Courtyards of the Eixample

In 1859 Ildefons Cerdà’s plans for expanding the city of Barcelona were approved and the construction of today’s Eixample area began. His grid pattern idea for the city was to create a utopia based society. His original idea was to have a green and clean new city with constant open, fresh air. This new city was to symbolize the opposite of the old city and its terrible and crowded living conditions.

            However, due to a drive to generate as much profit as possible, Cerdà’s original plan for the Eixample area were completely scrapped. Today in the Eixample area, the only remains of Cerdà’s original plans are the outlines of the blocks of apartment buildings and store buildings and with rounded off corners of every block, originally designed to allow public transportation, then horse drawn buggies, to make easier rounded turns, instead of sharp turns.

            Other aspects of Cerdà’s plans were left out which would have drastically altered the way the area looks today. Buildings were to be constructed only two sides of every block in a checkerboard fashion so that there would never be two buildings touching each other, each having a small open green area in between. Instead, buildings were constructed on all four sides of every block, each touching the one next to it with no green open air space between them. In the middle of every block, in the interiors of the buildings were supposed to be private and public gardens, courtyards, to keep the open-air feeling of the new area. Instead, these planned courtyards were covered by single story structures that are manly inhabited by restaurants and stores.

            While searching the internet to find the few courtyards hidden in the Eixample area today, I found out a good deal about the city’s efforts to recreate these courtyards in an effort to lessen the densely crowded area that the Eixample has become. The organization responsible for this courtyards project is Proeixample S.A., a group made up of officials from the city of Barcelona and Catalan banks. Their aim is purchase land in the Eixample area whenever a part of a block, or manzana, becomes available due to a business closing down. They then convert the area into an open-air public park, usually with benches and children’s playgrounds. The costs for the design and layout of these converted courtyards are paid through the development and sale of the remainder of the area for apartment complexes and or other miscellaneous  public services.

            Since the beginning of Proeixample and this initiative, eight courtyards have been converted back to Cerdà’s original plan. The eight courtyards that have been recreated today are: Torre de les Aigues on Roger de Llúria, Casa Elizalde on Valencia,  Palau Robert on Passeig de Gràcia, Sebastià Bach on Rocafort, Cesar Martinell on Villaroel, Escola Carlit on Roger de Flor, Montserrat Roig on Roselló, and Manuel de Pedrolo on Diputació. While the courtyards in the Eixample area today are nothing spectacular, they are quiet and humble areas to escape the busy life of the city. The most interesting one I found was Torre de les Aigues. With an old water tower in the middle and a small wading pool, it was a refreshing break the apartment filled grid pattern of the city. It was also the only courtyard I found not cluttered with playgrounds and small children.

F.C. Barcelona Outside of Catalunya

Mes de un club: that is the theme of Barcelona’s powerhouse soccer team. Prior to coming to Barcelona, I would have considered myself a follower of Barcelona soccer. I would occasionally check the outcomes of matches and whenever a Champions League game was shown of ESPN in the US I would sit down and watch it. But after living in Barcelona for 4 months I feel as though I have the right to call myself a Barca fan. I’ve lived in the city, gone to a game, and seen the way the people of Barcelona care and truly live for this team. But what I did not understand until my trip to Seville was the passion in the rivalries throughout Spain.  Coming from the U.S., I understand sports rivalries: Boston vs. New York, Philadelphia vs. Dallas, etc. Some people even take these sports rivalries to the extent that they look down on their rival’s city. But no one in the U.S. is truly hates their rivals city or culture. I must preface the rest of this by saying that I know of the huge rivalry between Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona, and I also know that cultural the two cities are far different and the people of each do not see eye to eye on many things. But what I did not know was how this sentiment of looking down on Barcelona, and Catalunya as a whole, extended beyond just Madrid and throughout all of Spain.

            While I was in Seville, I had the opportunity to watch a Real Madrid vs. F.C. Barcelona game. I expected there to be a crowd in the bar watching the game, but I did not expect it to be packed full of people, especially since Seville has its own soccer club. However, the bar was completely full of people, all cheering for Real Madrid. At first my friend and I were trying to decide if it just happened to be a crowd of Real Fans living in Seville or if there was a feeling of anti-Catalunya motivating their allegiance. Our doubts were soon answered when we overheard the bartender screaming at the television that Barcelona should not be allowed to win the Copa del Rey since they were not Spanish. It was at that point that we realized how people all over Spain felt towards the city of Barcelona. It was also the moment that we realized the real meaning behind F.C. Barcelona’s slogan, Mes de un club.

The Culture of the Street

In the middle of March, my parents came to Barcelona to visit it me. Fot both, it was their first taste of Barcelona. While they both wanted to see all of the tourist sites and ride on the double decker bus that drives tourists in circles around the city, I wanted them to get a real sense of the culture of Barcelona. To do this, I sent them down Las Ramblas to experience what, for me, as been one of the most interesting aspects of Barcelona culture, street performances.

            Unlike anywhere I have ever been before, the people of Barcelona are always out and about on the street. They seem to be people who do not live their lives behind the closed doors of their homes, but rather live their lives out in the public sphere. This is quite a refreshing way of life after living in the US where a “private life” is the norm. But the most interesting part of this outdoor and public life that Barcelonans seem to live is, are those who choose to work and entertain in the street. Walking down Las Ramblas during certain parts of the days can resemble walking through a fairy tale land. Seeing different people dressed as dragons, or fairies, or famous movie characters is humorous and at times scary, but always mesmerizing.

            The most interesting encounter with a street performer I’ve experienced while in Barcelona thus far didn’t take place on Las Ramblas though, but rather in the square in front of the Cathedral. On a quiet Sunday morning stroll though the winding streets of the Gothic quarter; I came across a small circle of people forming around a man assembling a long metal pole. Intrigued I stopped to view what the commotion was, only planning to stop for a few minutes. I ended up staying for an hour and a half in total to fitness one of the best “free shows” I have ever seen. The man, as it turned out, was an Australian acrobat, who had learned just enough Spanish to be able to communicate with the crowd. He called on volunteers of all ages from the audience, preformed magic tricks, comedy, and eventually preformed a routine of flips and dips and dives on the large metal pole being held up by four volunteers from around the world. By the end of his show there had to have been almost 400 people standing around, enchanted by the man’s strength and talent and cheering like crazy. Along with the 400 bystanders, were also 2 police officers that had been dispatched to break up the crowd that had formed, but even they had become memorized by the performance and had decided to stand and watch rather than break up the crowd like they had been sent to do. As soon as the performance was over, everyone, full of smiles and giggles, applauded like crazy and sent their children running towards him to give him donations. It was one of the happiest moments I have seen in Barcelona. Hundreds of locals and tourists all stopped to watch in amazement what this man was doing. For a brief moment, this one cultural aspect provided by Barcelona connected all people from all over the world, but currently in Barcelona.

Sagnier and Tibidabo

Perched on top of Mt. Tibidabo, overlooking the entire city of Barcelona, is Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, over more commonly know as the Tibidabo church. This grand building was one of the first things I noticed while walking through the city on my very first day. My home stay, located on Carrer de Balmes, near Diagonal, has a perfect view of the church in one direction and the W hotel on the beach in the other. During one of my first dinners with my host, I asked them about the beautiful building located on top of Mt. Tibidabo behind the city. After a brief art history lesson, my host mother is an art history professor and a native of Barcelona, she informed me that the architect of the church was Enric Sagnier, her great uncle and godfather. During the course of my stay here, my host family has introduced me to their grandmother, Sagnier’s niece, who I was able to ask question to and hear stories from about Sagnier.

             The Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús is not just one building, but two actually. The church was built in two stages. First, construction on the lower crypt began in 1902 and was completed in 1911. Next the upper church was begun shortly after in 1912. The project consumed three decades of Sagnier’s life, finally being completed by his son, Josep Maria Sagnier, in 1961. The church was dedicated to The Sacred Heart of Jesus and built following a combination of Romanesque and neo-Gothic styles. Sagnier drew inspiration from the idea of the natural wall that the Tibidabo Mountain created between Barcelona and the Vallès district. He designed the lower church, or crypt, with towers and merlons in Romanesque style as the broad stone base for the upper church, that contained vertical Gothic lines, to sit upon. According to the original plans for the building, the original project was to have a flowery decorative repertoire but when construction commenced Sagnier chose to simplify the shapes. The construction on the church began during Sagnier's life, but after his death in 1931, the project was completed by his son Josep Maria Sagnier i Vidal in 1961. While many people regard the Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús as artistically ugly, it is one of Sagnier’s most famous works through out the city. Some other of his most famous works are the Palacio de Justicia located near the arc de Triomf, the Customs House at the end of las Ramblas near the statue of Christopher Columbus, and Casal del Ahorro, otherwise known as the head office for the Caixa de Pensions de Barcelona, located on Via Laietana.

            While Sagnier was a modernista architect, he was also much more. Throughout different points in his life, he embraced and utilized styles of neo-Classicism as well as neo-Romanesque.  Therefore, Sagnier’s work does not stand out as clearly to people because he does not have one unique style, the way Gaudi’s use of mosaic created from broken tiles, Trencadís, can be used as an identifier of his work.  Sagnier’s form was eclectic, changing with changes in taste, and technologies.

            There are three main time periods through which Sagnier’s work, especially in Barcelona, changed drastically. Prior to the turn of the century his work was grandiose. During the first century of the 1900’s he adopted a modernista style. Finally, after 1910 he turned to Neoclassicism. Many of the people who commissioned his works were either aristocrats or from the Catholic Church.

Escaping the City

A unique aspect of the city of Barcelona is that while it is a huge city, located right on the Mediterranean Sea, it still has a large amount of green grass parks. Many of which are much more than city block full of trees and benches, but rather small getaways that one can disappear into and forget all about being in such a large city. The two I have in mind are Parc de la Ciutadella and Parc del Laberint d'Horta. Ciutadella is Barcelona’s most well know park in the Ribera district. It was converted into park starting in 1872, after King Philip V’s citadel was demolished. In 1885, the area was designated as the site of the 1888 Universal Exhibition, which boosted the development of the park. The most famous building that still remains from the Universal Exhibition is the “Castel dels Tres Dragons.” The other famous cite in the park is the Cascada, an arch waterfall in the corner of the park built to resemble the “Trevi Fountain” in Rome. Today, walking through Parc de la Ciutadella, one cannot help but feel a bohemian vibe. Many of the city’s younger residents inhabit the Parc during the dancing, dancing, singing, playing, and eating. It is full of vibrant life and is a wonderful break from the traffic and business heavy grid of the Exaimple. The other, Parc del Laberint d'Horta, located next to the University of Barcelona’s campus in the Horta-Guinardó district of Barcelona, is a 18th century neoclassical garden. It is truly a blast from the past and one of Barcelona’s best-kept secrets. Wandering through the maze of gardens and walkways and waterfalls, one completely forgets that they are living in the 21^st century and feels as though they have traveled back in time to18^th century Italy. Filled with statues of roman gods and beautiful gardens, it is truly a little slice of paradise hidden in Barcelona’s outskirts.

Visit to Tarragona

Before my trip to Tarragona with IES, I had heard some pretty bad things about Tarragona. I heard it was nothing but a few random remains of the roman city. I heard it was also only worth a day trip and not the three days IES was planning on spending there. This was not the case. Tarragona was an amazing experience. In Roman times, the city was named Tarraco and was capital of the province of Hispania Tarraconens is The Roman colony founded at Tarraco had the full name Colonia Iulia Urbs Triumphalis Tarraco. Today the Roman buildings remain in the city are the walls, with two gates: Portal del Roser and the Portal de Sant Antoni, the capitol, the Forum, the circus or amphitheatre, the so-called tower of the Scipios, and the Aurelian Way. All are extraordinary. And beyond the Roman history for the city is a flourishing beach side town filled with hotels, restaurants, and stores. It was an absolutely beautiful place. But the highlight was certainly our journey to the amphitheater situated right in front of the sea. While I never got the chance to travel to Italy this semester, I feel I have been exposed to roman architecture and influence many times throughout Barcelona and especially Tarragona.

Visit to the Picasso Museum

When one thinks of Spain, it is hard to not also think of one of its greatest painters, Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, also just know as Picasso. Barcelona just so happens to be home to the Museu Picasso, located on Carrer Montcada in the El Born. But unlike the Picasso’s famous works of cubism known around the world, the Museu Picasso in Barcelona sheds a different light on this famous painter. The Museu Picasso specializes in the early years or rather “blue period” of Picasso’s life. The walls of the museum are lined with dark and gloomy paintings in the style of realism. It is almost as though an entirely different painter did the paintings. Compared to his famous painting, Guernica, done in 1937 and now housed in the Museo Reina Sofia, in Madrid, the paintings of Picasso’s Blue Period are completely different in color and style. But the most interesting exhibit in the Museo Picasso was not a painting at all, but rather a television screen towards the end of the museum showing the similar shapes between his early works and his cubism paintings. While his color schemes and styles changed drastically, his forms and characters remained the same across both styles. The most apparent of these was that of a dog which appeared in most of his works. The television screen would outline the shape of the dog in one of his realism works and then overlay one of his cubism works on top of the first and show how Picasso kept the same form and spacing throughout all of his works, regardless of the time period.

El Raval

El Raval = a redefined neighborhood. Apparently El Raval Barrio was a bit dilapidated and a center or drugs and violence a few years back. Known for being once being the home for sex, drugs, and alcohol, as well as whatever else a sailor might want after a long journey, today it is a young and vibrant neighborhood, filled with young people on skateboards, amazing restaurants, home to a few departments of the University of Barcelona. It is also home to the Museum of Modern Art as well as the Centre de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona. After our field trip I took a friend to Bar Raval at the top, or bottom depending on your perspective, of Rambla del Raval to introduce him to tapas and Seafood Paella. Of course he loved both, but was unwilling to touch the balls of the cat, like we had been instructed to do during our field trip by a local, on our after lunch stroll.

            Our second stop along the field trip was the Maritime Museum towards the bottom of the Raval neighborhood. Built a few kilometers from the sea, the building itself was held up by gigantic arches, which helped to envision the construction of ships which took place there. Sitting outside the Museum was a replica of one of the world’s first Submarines, an interesting piece of history.

Back to the Future

            Entering the Museu d’Història de la Ciutat in Barcelona felt more like Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 film, Back to the Future, than a school field trip. Boarding the elevator inside the museum in the year 2011 and watching time fly back to the 1^st century BC as we descended to the old Roman ruins of the city was a humbling event. Resting a story or two below the modern bustling streets of Barcelona around the Cathedral and Placa del Rei, the rumored location of Ferdinand and Isabelle’s reception of Christopher Columbus, now lays the remains of the once bustling streets of the Roman city of Barcino, or rather Colonia Iulia Augusta Paterna Faventia Barcino. The old roman city was founded in 10 BC by the Emperor Augustus, hence the original roman name for the city. While Barcelona today stands as one the world’s most famous cities, back in the time of the Romans, it was a distant second to the Roman capital and port of Tarraco, current day Tarragona.

            Never the less, the remains of the roman city of Barcino on display beneath the museum gave us a glimpse of what life was like for the Romans. Surprisingly, society for them was not all that different from society today. On preserved display is a district of workshops and factories, including areas where clothes were washed and dyed. The large pits of the cetaria, used for salting fish and preparing fish sauce, garum, are still partially intact. Also on display are the old roman public baths used for bathing and teaching as well as a Church from the Visigoth period, around the 6^th century.

            But perhaps the most interesting part of the Museum were the displays of Children’s toys, trinkets, and tic-tac-toe boards, as well as women’s make up kits and jars. Such objects show you that while we live in a time very distant from the Romans, the structure and workings of society are not as distant. Today in Barcelona, The Government center, The Town Hall and the Parliament of Catalunya, as well as the religious center, all still stand in the same spot as it did for the Romans, in Placa St. Jaume. Children are still seen playing in the streets, although now more so with skateboards than tic-tac-toe boards. And women still parade into local beauty shops to buy their makeup. The large vats of garum have now been replaced by large vats of gelado. But all in all, the Roman city of Barcino does not seem to be all that different from the modern Catalan city of Barcelona.

Visit to Montserrat

Montserrat is a mountain chain north of the city of Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. The main peaks of Montserrat are Sant Jeroni, Montgrós, and Miranda de les Agulles. It is most famously known as the site of the Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, which hosts the Virgin of Montserrat sanctuary and which is identified by some as the location of the Holy Grail.

The term "Montserrat” means, "jagged mountain" in Catalan. My journey to Montserrat with the IES field trip was a pleasurable one. We began our day in Montserrat with a 3-hour hike around the mountain. After an hour or so bus ride and a 5-minute funicular ride up the side of the Mountain, we were given a brief lesson about the hermitages in the mountains surround the church. We learned that at one time many religious hermits had retreated to this place but that now there were none. The last one had apparently died at the end of the 1990’s. We were then taken to one of the still intact hermitages up on one side of the mountain. There were carved out steps in the side of the mountain. The most intricate part of the hermitage was the track that had been carved into the side of the mountain wall to catch rain fall as is poured down the side of the mountain and then was captured by a well that had been carved out beneath it.  Our second half of the trip was inside the art gallery and a visit to the Basilica. In the art gallery, we learned the story of the Black Madonna and then got into line to wait to touch the hand of the black Madonna statue, the only part left exposed by the glass case.