Mis queridos amigos,
Here I am, sitting on la terrazza in the November sunshine (it's 70 degrees F in November, how cool is that?!), looking at the view of Sant Cugat and trying to think of all the exciting things to tell you all about. First of all, let me say, I cannot believe it's already November! Time has been going by so fast! I am enjoying school and my after school language and clarinet classes, and weekends always include a great time with my friends and family. Apparently, el tiempo vuela cuando te diviertes!
Let me start with my first experience with Spanish music...La Pegatina concert! I have this one great friend from school, Cecilia, who is really into music. She sings and plays guitar, and we even performed a song together for an English presentation! So, she invited me to go to a rumba concert of a well-known band here, La Pegatina. We met up with some of her friends Dario and Miki, and then went to the concert in Cerdanyola, a nearby city. Luckily we arrived early enough that we were in the very front, and it was definitely worth it even though we had to listen to and pretend we enjoyed the music of the much disliked opening band...haha. By the time La Pegatina started playing, it was dark and all the people were super pumped! We had a blast jumping, dancing, clapping, and doing all those things you do at concerts. It was extremely fun, and also interesting to experience about this new genre of music. Although rumba originated in Cuba, it's really popular in almost all spanish-speaking countries. It was funny how a lot of the songs consisted of singing "le le le" in different rhythms, but at least I could participate in this part of singing along ;). Something pretty cool that happened in the middle of the concert was that people started building castellets, which are towers of people! This is really typical in Catalonia; there are castellet teams, and people do it randomly for fun as well. Basically it was a great concert and I got to know some new people as well :).
My next cultural and very Catalan experience was the weekend of La Castanyada. This is a festival typical of Catalonia which is actually on All Saint's Day but celebrated the whole weekend. It is kind of like Halloween in that it originated as a festival for the dead, but is celebrated in a completely different way. Of course the customs of Halloween are starting to make their way into the celebration, but only a little (Catalan people are veryyy proud of their own culture). The Friday before La Castanyada, our school had a celebration (which meant only two classes, woohoo!) in which different classes set up booths and activities. My History of Music class was in charge of the makeup, so we had lots of fun with the fake blood and red lipstick. By the end of the day half the school was walking around with looking like a zombie or vampire or something of that sort. Anyway...back to the traditional stuff! I'd have to say the most important part of La Castanyada is the food, which is delicious. The traditional dessert of this holiday is panellets, small cookies made out of almonds and sugar, and usually covered in pine nuts. Moniatos, or sweet potatoes, are also a popular favorite, and of course the most important food...
The word castanyada comes from the word castanya, which means chestnut. So, during this weekend there are a lot of people selling roasted chestnuts wrapped in newspaper. This year, I was one of them! I went to Rubí with some friends, and helped them sell chestnuts for their organization, Esplai. Most people weren't interested in buying any chestnuts, but I got a lot of practice saying "Voleu castanyes?" and "Quieren castañas?" (Would you like to buy chestnuts?). After a few hours of unsuccessful selling, we broke out the stilts, guitar and megaphone, hoping that if we played and sang songs about chestnuts through a megaphone while another person was walking on stilts we would sell more. We did receive a lot more smiles with this idea...but no interest in buying chestnuts...haha. However, at the end of the day we had made 235 euros, que bien!
Other significant things I've done lately:
1) Indoor ice skating in Barcelona with Aina and Laura! It was lots of fun...and I only fell three times :)
2) Ordered some coffee and the waiter didn't try to speak to me in English...yay! My accent must be improving ;)
3) Afternoon at the puerto of Barcelona...great lunch right on the beach, walking in the sand, and watching the surfers wait for the good waves
4) Passed my math test (with word problems in Catalan) with a 7...YAY!
5) I was applauded in class for working with a dictionary..."Mira la Nina, tranquila, trabajando con el diccionario, aplaudimos!"
6) "Nina, tomorrow, we don't have Math, Science, Catalan, or Universal Literature."
"YAY!"
"I KNOW, it's like...TOMA!"
Well, I suppose that's all for now! I'll try to update soon :)
Love always,
Nina
Here I am, sitting on la terrazza in the November sunshine (it's 70 degrees F in November, how cool is that?!), looking at the view of Sant Cugat and trying to think of all the exciting things to tell you all about. First of all, let me say, I cannot believe it's already November! Time has been going by so fast! I am enjoying school and my after school language and clarinet classes, and weekends always include a great time with my friends and family. Apparently, el tiempo vuela cuando te diviertes!
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| Me, Pau, Irene, Dario, Miki, and Ceci at La Pegatina |
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| La Pegatina...I am actually in the crowd, you just can't see me:) |
My next cultural and very Catalan experience was the weekend of La Castanyada. This is a festival typical of Catalonia which is actually on All Saint's Day but celebrated the whole weekend. It is kind of like Halloween in that it originated as a festival for the dead, but is celebrated in a completely different way. Of course the customs of Halloween are starting to make their way into the celebration, but only a little (Catalan people are veryyy proud of their own culture). The Friday before La Castanyada, our school had a celebration (which meant only two classes, woohoo!) in which different classes set up booths and activities. My History of Music class was in charge of the makeup, so we had lots of fun with the fake blood and red lipstick. By the end of the day half the school was walking around with looking like a zombie or vampire or something of that sort. Anyway...back to the traditional stuff! I'd have to say the most important part of La Castanyada is the food, which is delicious. The traditional dessert of this holiday is panellets, small cookies made out of almonds and sugar, and usually covered in pine nuts. Moniatos, or sweet potatoes, are also a popular favorite, and of course the most important food...
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| Roasting castanyes |
The word castanyada comes from the word castanya, which means chestnut. So, during this weekend there are a lot of people selling roasted chestnuts wrapped in newspaper. This year, I was one of them! I went to Rubí with some friends, and helped them sell chestnuts for their organization, Esplai. Most people weren't interested in buying any chestnuts, but I got a lot of practice saying "Voleu castanyes?" and "Quieren castañas?" (Would you like to buy chestnuts?). After a few hours of unsuccessful selling, we broke out the stilts, guitar and megaphone, hoping that if we played and sang songs about chestnuts through a megaphone while another person was walking on stilts we would sell more. We did receive a lot more smiles with this idea...but no interest in buying chestnuts...haha. However, at the end of the day we had made 235 euros, que bien!
Other significant things I've done lately:
 |
| "Do you want to go skating on ice?" |
2) Ordered some coffee and the waiter didn't try to speak to me in English...yay! My accent must be improving ;)
3) Afternoon at the puerto of Barcelona...great lunch right on the beach, walking in the sand, and watching the surfers wait for the good waves
4) Passed my math test (with word problems in Catalan) with a 7...YAY!
5) I was applauded in class for working with a dictionary..."Mira la Nina, tranquila, trabajando con el diccionario, aplaudimos!"
6) "Nina, tomorrow, we don't have Math, Science, Catalan, or Universal Literature."
"YAY!"
"I KNOW, it's like...TOMA!"
Well, I suppose that's all for now! I'll try to update soon :)
Love always,
Nina
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| Puerto en Barcelona |
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| With Laura in Barcelona |
