Carpe Diem!

There were two special events here this last week.  Even though my car was not yet repaired (it seems they installed a defective part and will try again when they get hold of another one) at least I had the car in my possession (the mechanic says it’s safe to drive although I find it annoying) so I could vroom vroom my way around to enjoy both the Royal Wedding and the Goat Fair.

Lots of Americans watched the Royal Wedding on TV, but I did it surrounded by Brits without leaving Spain by going to the Restaurant/Hotel Carpe Diem where some local Brits were having a Royal Wedding party, car boot sale, and lunch.  It was all right here, in the middle of nowhere, in the Catalan countryside.

Getting to the Carpe Diem wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been, car trouble notwithstanding.  Eve and I have been to the Carpe Diem Restaurant/Hotel in Miami more than once and when she saw the ad and made the reservation, she assumed that was where she was calling.  But when we got there, in enough time to see the principal parties leave their residences and head for the Cathedral, it turned out that Carpe Diem was closed.  Very closed.  Someone in the street told Eve that they have been closed for months.  What to do?  Was it the other Carpe Diem? 

You see, there are two Carpe Diems.  You wouldn’t think that in a small area with few amenities, there would be two restaurant/hotels with the same name, but there are.  The problem was that the other one, out in the county, was about 40 minutes away.  Would we even get there in time?  And what if the event wasn’t there?  What if it had been this Carpe Diem, OUR Carpe Diem, but they couldn’t call to tell us the party was off because they hadn’t taken Eve’s phone number when she reserved?  If it wasn’t at the other one, we would miss the whole wedding.  Neither of us had the phone number to call and ask.

We decided to meet the challenge and drive out to the other Carpe Diem, the one out in the country, and take our chances that the party was there and that we would make it in time.  We had come in two cars because I had an errand to do before we met up, so off we went, Eve’s car first.

People all over the world watched and celebrated Saturday’s Royal Wedding with street parties and barbecues.  Our event took place out in the Burga Valley at the Carpe Diem, a country restaurant/hotel owned and run by Germans and patronized on Friday almost entirely by Brits.  As far as I know, only three North Americans attended and all three of us were at the same table.  I was the only American, the other two were Canadians: Eve’s daughter-in-law Judy and her friend Lainie.  The husbands had declined to come.  

We arrived just in time to see the bride arrive at the cathedral.  Frankly, it would have been a lot more comfortable if we had stayed at home where we could have watched seated rather than standing, and where we could hear without lots of people chatting away all around us.  And we could have watched from the beginning of the coverage, rather than arriving at the very last minute.  But the barbecue was good (especially the bananas wrapped in bacon and the focaccia with herbs), the ambience was festive, Eve’s granddaughter Isabel wore a tiara, and altogether it felt more like a special day.

Sunday was the Goat Fair at Rasquera.   I seized the opportunity to have another country outing, see some goats, and buy some cheese, all on my own.  Fairs of this type happen all around Europe in the spring.  I understood it was the time when the goatherds and shepherds took their flocks out of winter lodgings and back up to the mountains for summer pasture.  But here they talk about bringing the flocks down.  Catalans have a lot of spunk and sometimes seem to go against the flow.

We were celebrating the local goat and sheep herds in general and the Cabra Blanca (white goat) in particular.   The Cabra Blanca is a species indigenous to this area – a Catalan goat -- and highly prized, as there are only 5500 of them left.  Being aware of their being precariously close to extinction has mobilized people to care for and breed them in order to bring them back to healthier numbers.  Although they are called white, they are mostly white and black with big ears that lop forward and great horns that, in the spirit of Catalan spunkiness and creativity, twirl in a variety of ways, reminiscent of Salvador Dali’s mustache.

Now my car is at the shop, the new part, having arrived, is being installed.  Hopefully, in place of the undulating roar of the engine, my next and all future excursions will be executed with quiet and decorum.

Sant Jordi & Gustave Courbet

Saturday was a special holiday (and my favorite) here in Catalunya.  23 April is Sant Jordi, known to English-speakers as Saint George.  Sant Jordi is the patron saint of Catalunya (and many other places – I believe he is the most popular of all male saints).  He’s the one who slew the dragon and saved the princess.  Maybe he is the most popular because his story is more appealing than all those poor souls who were tortured and put to death.  In any case, this remarkable feat was said to have taken place in several locations around the Mediterranean – in other words, many people say “it happened here!” -- and Montblanc, a Catalan town inland from Tarragona, is one of them.  When Saint George slew the dragon and saved the princess, a red rose grew from where the dragon’s blood spilled.  Thus, since 1456, the day has been celebrated (only in Catalunya; not in the rest of Spain) much like Valentine’s Day with men giving red roses to the women they love. 

In 1923 a Barcelona bookseller began a campaign to also celebrate 23 April as the Day of the Book because the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes happen to coincide on 23 April 1616 and, I guess, he thought it would help his book business.  His efforts were successful and since then, books have been added to the holiday, and it has become the Day of the Book and the Rose.  It is one of the loveliest holidays here in Catalunya, where books and flower stalls draped in Catalan flags are set out on the main promenade of every city, town, and village. 

In 1995, 23 April was adopted by UNESCO as World Book Day upon petition from Catalunya.  Unfortunately, not many people around the world know about it.  But for any book lover out there, this might be a good time to start making suggestions to your local bookseller to celebrate the holiday next year.

Lately my own reading has tended to books (mostly, but not entirely non-fiction) about art and artists.  Perhaps because I don’t want to dwell on not having much love or friendship in my life right now, I’m focusing instead on beauty.  My recently read list includes:

Chagall: Love and Exile, by Jackie Wullshlager

Vincent and Theo Van Gogh: A Dual Biography, by Jan Hulsker

Brunelleschi’s Dome, by Ross King

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, by Mark Doty

The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, by Mark Roskill

The Judgment of Paris, by Ross King

and currently the fictional, Lust for Life, by Irving Stone

The Judgment of Paris was about the beginnings of Impressionism and the fight for recognition of the artists who were developing a new way of expressing beauty and the world, breaking out of the restrictive rules of the official Paris art world.  Gustave Courbet was a Realist painter who was a forerunner to the Impressionists in that he abandoned the classical and approved topics for paintings and instead sought his subjects from real life, engaged in pictorial social commentary, while also using a less distinct style of applying paint.  And it just so happens that the National Museum of Art of Catalunya is now holding an exhibition of some of Courbet’s most important paintings, in order to show how he influenced Catalan painters of that time, some of whose works are also on display.  I had to go. 

Going to Barcelona for Sant Jordi, meant I could see the exhibit and enjoy the ambience of that lovely holiday on the same trip.  Two hours each way by train is not a voyage I take lightly, so I wanted to make the most of the journey.

I’m very happy I went, but not all was jolly.  For one thing, there was the delay in getting to Barcelona.  At San Vicenç de Calders, the train took an alternative inland route, passing through the Penedes wine-growing region, and seeming to crawl along at 30 kph, adding more than half an hour to the trip.  As is typical, this change in route was not explained to the passengers.  At the museum, the women at the ticket counter were unpleasant and rude, but perhaps because I commented on it, they let me in for free as a senior, even though I’m not old enough (yet)!  The young man behind the counter at the museum café overcharged me by 2 euros for a slice of carrot cake.  I asked about the price, but didn’t want to argue, even though it was listed on the menu.  Sometimes it is more convenient to enjoy moral indignation than enter into an argument.  Later, the plate of tapas I ordered at a tapas bar for my lunch took 40 minutes to arrive, so that I was sitting there, alone, while all the other couples at the bar had been served, had left, new ones had come, had been served, etc.  When I finally began to worry that I would miss my train home and I asked what had happened to my mushrooms, the plate came at last.  The Rambla had the usual (wonderful) tables full of books and flowers, but the street was so crowded that one could hardly move.  It was festive and colorful but not for those suffering from claustrophobia or the fainthearted.  Luckily, I am neither.

In spite of these setbacks, the good outweighed the irksome.  Although rain had threatened, and indeed the train was rained on en route, the weather in Barcelona was beautiful, sunny with a blue sky punctuated with fluffy clouds.  They have made a shopping mall of one of the Barcelona bull rings.  It opened recently and is already quite an attraction.  I walked past and maybe I’ll go in next time.  The Generalitat had installed the four large columns, representing the four stripes of the Catalan flag that had been removed from the base of Montjuic during the Franco years.  They now enhance the Plaça Espanya and I thought they looked very good back in their old home.  As always on a clear day, the views from the museum at the top of Montjuic were spectacular.   

I was very happy to see some of Courbet’s paintings in person.  Included in the exhibit were, among others, his Self-portrait with Black Dog; Man with a Pipe; The Desperate Man; The Wounded Man; Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman; and Sleep.  The real paintings are always more interesting to look at than reproductions, especially the small-scale ones on the internet or in books.  I could see why he was considered the master by his peers.  His paintings stood far out from all the others on show.

I was also very happy to once again be able to enjoy the festivity of La Rambla full of books, flowers, Catalan flags, and people enjoying each other and the day.

Flying

In Catalan, volant means flying.  I had no idea until today that it also means steering wheel.  They mentioned it in a news story and in its context it didn’t make any sense as flying, so I looked it up in the dictionary.  All the time I was taking those driving lessons and failing those driving tests, I never knew it meant steering wheel.  Hmmm…..

My new (used) car seems to want to fly.  The engine keeps surging and going VROOM, VROOM, VROOM, to my great embarrassment.  I can control velocity with the clutch in first and second gears (high gears don’t require it), but when idling I want to sink down into the seat so people around can’t see me.  They must think that either I’m obnoxious or I don’t know how to drive.  Or both.  Of course they are completely and totally wrong.  I do know how to drive.  This has been happening on and off since I bought it, and I have yet another appointment with my mechanic on Monday to get this fixed, hopefully once and for all.

Back to words, I also learned a new meaning for the Catalan word grua today.  Grua means crane (or derrick) or a tow truck.  Today, while watching a program about the natural environment, I learned that it also refers to crane, the bird.  In English, the same word (crane) has the same two unrelated meanings.  Now how strange is that?  It’s the same with the word dret or “right” in English.  It means the direction opposite of left, it means political conservatism, it means something that is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees or moral principles.  How did the two languages come to have the same disparate meanings for the same word?

Another mystery.  Felix, my cat who I adopted after he had been shot by an obnoxious neighborhood who probably doesn’t know how to drive, has something wrong with him.  I suspect epilepsy or some neurological disorder.  Next week is his one year anniversary with me.  Twice in this year (the latest episode was two nights ago) in the wee hours of the morning, he has torn around like a bat out of hell, knocking into things, making a lot of noise, peeing on the floor, and finally becoming frozen, or perhaps paralyzed.  Both times it happened downstairs, and scared the heck out of Minnie and me.  The first time I thought maybe someone or some cat had broken into the house, but that wasn’t so.  Both times it woke me up so I only got down at the end of the episode, in time to see him frozen.  The first time he was in the downstairs bedroom (which also serves as the cats’ dining and bathroom and my office), under the bed, looking like he had seen a ghost.  He didn’t move for what seemed like ages.  This last time he was also in the downstairs bedroom, lying in a strange position on the floor, partially in his pee, seemingly frozen.  I didn’t disturb him either time, being afraid to harm him in some way.  Both times he came out of the paralysis after two or three minutes and came back to normal after a while.  I just stayed nearby, (after I had cleaned up the pee) to make him feel secure until he seemed pretty well recovered.  Any ideas on what can be ailing my cat?  The vet said that if it happens only twice a year, not to worry about it.  It would be extremely difficult, maybe impossible to ever find out what the problem is. 

Death and the Nissan

Death

About five years ago, soon after we moved from Tarragona to here, beyond the pale, I became involved with a local group of English-speakers.  Their main purpose was to network in order to help each other with mysteries such as how to get internet access or more basically, how to get a phone line installed.  In addition, they intended to have social activities and social and cultural exchanges with the natives of the area.  They had been meeting for a while and were ready to become official.  I helped with the writing of by-laws and, maybe because I was the newest member and didn’t know better, I was elected the first president.  We called ourselves ENet (the English-speaking Network).

Not long after we set ourselves up with by-laws and officers, we had news of a disturbing event.  There had been an elderly couple living somewhere nearby.  She was disabled and in a wheelchair.  One day he died, but she was unable to get to the phone to call for help and was trapped near her dead husband for three days.  This appalling event mobilized our group to organize some kind of emergency help for people in need.  We argued about whether or not it should be limited to people who joined ENet.  We argued about whether people should be charged for the service.  We argued about how far the help should extend.  We argued about what type of help we could offer – after all, we were none of us trained.  We argued about who would carry the mobile phone that would be used as the 24-hour help line.  We finally gave the whole thing up in favor of an I.D. card that had space for the name and phone number of a person to contact in case of emergency.

The Nissan

When my car died, I began my search for a new car with Geroni, my trusty mechanic.  No matter that we had bought the Citroen through him and that it was a lemon from the get-go.  Geroni always seemed embarrassed about that and gave me a reduced price (so he said) on the hundreds of gallons of oil I bought to replace the oil that speedily burned away, leaving great clouds behind me when I accelerated and constant fumes within the car.

Geroni found me a Renault Clio that a client of his was selling.  Eve took me to see it and our impression was that it was a heap, albeit a far smaller heap than the Citroen Xsara that just died.  It was a 1994 Renault Clio with 114,000 miles on it that ran on gas (the Citroen ran on diesel, as most cars here do) and reeked inside even when the car wasn’t running.  I figured the owner had a big, smelly dog.  Another customer who began schmoozing with me said he knew the Clio’s owner who lived in the village and who used this car only to go back and forth from his tros (a piece, used to denote a small tract of land that is farmed but not lived on.  Around here the usual crops from these parcels are olives, apricots, and carobs.).  He used the car to carry carobs.  He does not now nor ever did have a dog.  Maybe dog odor would have been better.  The dogless Clio owner wanted 1500 euros which seemed a lot for his stinky little old car. 

Carol and Lino said to look for cars on the internet and helpfully recommended a couple of websites.  There I found two other Clios that were cheaper --  one for 999 euros (newer but with more miles), and another for 1200 euros (older but with half the miles).  The Carob Clio seemed even less of a good buy.

On the internet I also found other cars of interest.  There was a Citroen Saxo (gas) for 1500 euros, a Nisson Micra (gas) for 990 and a 1998 Ford Ka KA for 1000 -- not an auspicious name.  Then there was this used car lot out in Montblanc that had Audis, Mercedes, a Saab, and lots of higher end cars for bottom of the barrel prices: there was a nice-looking BMW for 1190, a 1995 Audi for 1750, a 1998 Audi for 1290, a 1995 BMW 520i for 1190.  I wondered where the owner, Mr. Petrov, got his cars and if the whole business was legal.  But without a car of my own, it was too far to go to investigate.

What I really wanted was a car with some character – a Citroen 2cv or something else ancient and interesting.  One that ran.  But fanciful old cars that run are more expensive than nondescript second hand cars.

Eve took me to auto row in Tortosa where everything turned out to be very expensive.   One of the dealers recommended a used car lot called Autoscheca in L’Amposta that would have cars that were more economic (they favor the word economic over cheap).  We headed there.  They had some nice cars and some heaps, but even the economic heaps were beyond my price range.  Juan told me to come back Thursday when he would have received a new truck load of cars.

Eve had noticed what looked like a small used car lot on the way out, so on the way back we stopped at the outskirts of Aldea, probably Spain’s ugliest town, to see what they had.  Like the town, it was a sad-looking place.  Inside the office we found three disreputable-looking men, one of whom came out with us and showed us what they had.  It wasn’t much.  Car lots here don’t post prices or any details about the car, but I’m not too shy to ask.  One after another, the cars I asked about were either too expensive or already sold, until we came to a small Peugeot with a smashed windshield that otherwise looked about right for me.  Our man said they were asking 2000 euros.  He told me that the windshield would be replaced Monday or Tuesday.  I told him it was beyond my budget.  He said maybe they could do 1800.  When I told him I had a Citroen that didn’t run that I would like to trade, he said maybe we could do a deal.  I would have to talk with Djani, the boss, when he was there during the week. 

By the time I got hold of Djani, I had found another car but I still wanted to sell the Citroen.  Djani wanted to speak English.  He told me his father was French, his mother Croatian, he grew up in Italy, his forebears were Jewish, and he loves Elvis.  Djani was a wheeler-dealer in the age-old tradition.  Have I got a car for you!  Next time, I promised, over and over again.  I told Djani I wanted 100 euros for my Citroen that didn’t run.  He seemed pleased with that.  During the course of the deal – coming to see the car, coming back to get it, and my going to his office to sign papers – he repeatedly grumbled about how he didn’t know how much he would have to pay the tow truck and he didn’t know what he would be able to do with the car.  When he towed the car away he gave me 50 euros.  When I came to sign papers, I asked for the rest.  He managed to find two twenties in his pocket and I settled for that.  Truth is, I was glad I didn’t have to pay a junk yard to tow it away.

I was sad to see the old Citroen loaded onto the tow truck.  Would it go to a garage to be given a new lease on life, or would it serve as a part donor for more fortunate Citroens?  I hope Djani will fix it up and sell it (for lots of money, why not?) rather than dismantle it for parts.  As Jane posted on this blog in April 2010, a car takes you on wonderful outings, takes the kids to school (OK, I have no kids, but it took my cats to the vet), helps run errands that would be hell without it, and generally becomes part of one’s life.  I sincerely hope the Citroen will be resurrected and continue to enjoy happy trails, hopefully cured of the black smoke and noxious fumes that we suffered together.

I couldn’t buy any of Djani’s excellent and economical used cars because I had gotten entangled with a 2002 Nissan Primera (gas).  This was a sedan, about the same size as my Citroen, larger than I really needed, and probably a gas-guzzler.   But it looked good, and the asking price was better than economic.  The only problem with it was that it wouldn’t start.  My friend George had told me about the Nissan.  His friend Eddie was selling it.  It had belonged to Eddie’s brother John, who had died.  John had died five years ago and his wife, May, had been trapped there in the house next to him for three days, unable to call for help.

Two Deaths

Santi Santamaria, one of Catalunya’s great chefs, died on Wednesday of a heart attack at the opening of his new restaurant in Singapore.  He was 53 years old and carried his love of food with him in the form of a beer belly that probably had more to do with foie gras than beer. 

Santamaria was the first Catalan chef to earn three Michelin stars for his restaurant, Can Fabes in Sant Celoni, north of Barcelona.  Unlike his younger and more famous colleague, Ferran Adria, who heads up El Bulli, rated best restaurant in the world for four years running, Santamaria didn’t dish up weird food.  Adria is probably a genius, certainly an artist, and a self-proclaimed deconstructivist, engaging in what they call molecular gastronomy.  Santamaria believed in cooking with the freshest natural ingredients, and was closer to slow food than to culinary physics.  In fact, he recently embarked on a public dispute with the chefs who deconstruct food.  I am quite proud of Adria, adopted Catalan that I am.  I am proud of all the Catalans who do good and impressive things and help make Catalunya better known and respected throughout the world.  But it is Santi Santamaria’s restaurant that I would prefer to dine in.

Not on the same plane, and yet for me a monumental event was the death of my car, the infamous Citroen Xsara that ate its weight in oil.  It wasn’t a violent death but rather a quiet passing, sort of like an elderly person who gets out of bed in the morning and collapses dead on the way to the bathroom.  In fact, it was very much like that.  I had started it up, made my U-turn at the corner (not legal, I don’t think, but now that I have my Spanish license, I can do whatever I want), drove two blocks towards the village when I heard a small noise after which the engine died and never would come back  -- not for me, not for the tow truck driver, and not for Geroni, my mechanic.  It seems to be inoperable -- not that it couldn’t be repaired, but it would be a very expensive repair costing more than the car is worth.  I was told it was something to do with a broken belt that damaged parts of the engine – important parts such as valves or pistons.  Whatever.  My mastery of Catalan has not yet (nor will it ever) extend to all possible engine parts.  I am only grateful that it happened here on a small street with virtually no traffic and not out there on the highway with lots of cars and trucks speeding by.

I have been looking for a replacement car, would love to get an even older Citroen 2CV, but I won’t.  I will be more practical and simply get the cheapest thing I can find that runs.  And in fact, I’ve closed in on a Nissan sedan, although sadly, it isn’t actually running.  But it’s in the shop and hopefully will be any day now.  Having no wheels of my own, I’ve hitched rides with Eve (sometimes she lets me drive, but I am using this unfortunate event as a means of getting over my riding-in-a-car-when-someone-else-drives phobia so I can rejoin the world of normal people) and have even endured a short ride with another friend, George, in order to see that same Nissan that a friend of his has for sale.  I have also taken the local bus to the village and walked back, so that the unfortunate demise of my car has also provided me with a good excuse for incorporating more exercise in my life.  However, since I can just as well get exercise if I have a running car, I hope they fix the Nissan soon so I can buy it because life out here in the middle of nowhere without a car is even less fun than life with one.

Delightful

It all started with an argument about the best way to travel.  Should one read up about the place in order to know something about it and see it in a more informed way, or should one just go and have the pleasure of being surprised.  He was for surprise, I was for informed.

For me, a visit to Provence was a chance to explore Provençal textiles and ceramics.  When I went to Avignon for the first time I went out of my way to find the rue des Teinturiers, which my handy TimeOut Provence guidebook said had a small canalized river and numerous waterwheels that ran alongside it.  These remained from the 19^th century when the street housed dyeworks, used in the making of those wonderful Provençal cotton prints.  The Pope’s Palace is fantastic (and you can’t miss it), but I think the rue des Teinturiers is the prettiest place in Avignon.  Just looking at my photos of that small street still gives me pleasure, and I may not have found it or understood what it really was if I hadn’t read up.

I didn’t go to Arles the first time because Van Gogh had lived there for 15 months and painted his best-known works there.  I went because it seemed interesting, was in the right area, and had a beautiful and relatively inexpensive hotel that was too inviting to pass up.  In the town of Arles they have plaques posted here and there indicating subjects of some of Vincent’s paintings, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.  I just wandered around, soaking up the ambience of the place which I found wonderful, visited the Frederic Mistral Arlaten folk museum, full of every manner of day-to-day things the Arlatens had lived with a hundred or more years ago, including tiny shoes worn by the women (goodness how our feet have grown!), discovered the local 19^th century artist Léo Lelée, and enjoyed just being there.

Some time after that trip I happened to see the last few minutes of the movie Lust for Life (one of my mother’s favorites but one I had never seen), and having visited Arles, it sparked my interest in the painter who had lived there and had had such a hard life.  When I heard that a new edition of Vincent’s letters had been published, well illustrated with many reproductions of his work, I thought to buy the book, but it was prohibitively expensive.  Instead, I looked on the internet and found the Vincent van Gogh Gallery (http://www.vggallery.com/) where all his letters appear, as well as hundreds of drawings and paintings, a bibliography, and links to related sites.  It’s a great resource for someone with a limited budget who wants to learn more about Van Gogh and doesn’t have a well-stocked library nearby.

After studying some of the material on that website and reading other books such as The Yellow House and the out-of-print Vincent and Theo Van Gogh: A Dual Biography (a five-pounder that my stepson Manuel Serge was kind enough to bring with him in his luggage on a visit because it was too heavy for the used bookshop to mail), I have come to see Vincent, who Mark Roskill calls an “intensely lovable man,” in an entirely new way.  Going back to Arles in the future will be a different experience for me.  Arles has become a place with meaning.

Although I appreciate knowledge and expertise, I also enjoy surprise and new things.  I heard a lot of classical music at home growing up, some of it on records, most of it on the classical radio station that my mother would always be tuned to (KDFC?).  But I didn’t begin attending opera until I was well into adulthood and my best friend Sheila dragged me over to the San Francisco Opera House for a dose of Janacek’s Katya Kabanova.  It lasts for about an hour and forty minutes during which you never hear what I would call a melody.  In spite of that, I was hooked.  I didn’t like the music, but I liked opera.  One of my first-ever fabulous experiences at the opera happened soon afterwards, the second time I went.  It was a performance of Madame Butterfly.  All of a sudden, Butterfly was singing that famous aria.  I knew that aria was from Madame Butterfly, but I hadn’t given it any thought beforehand so when she started to sing it, it came as a complete surprise.  That was a thrill.  No longer just a beautiful aria, it became, like so many others afterwards, part of a much greater whole.  I’ve had similar experiences since, but none was quite the same superb surprise as the first time.

I think pleasure or enjoyment can be divided into (at least) two types: (1) the enjoyment you can get from a surprise or from something new, and (2) the enjoyment you get from something you know well.  One needn’t exclude the other.  Some people prefer one, some the other, some enjoy both equally.  And me?  I think there is more value to knowing something well and being able to enjoy it on multiple levels and in a more profound way.  That, it seems to me, gives a richer and deeper enjoyment than experiencing something new.  On the other hand, I’ve come to think that what I enjoy most hasn’t to do with either.  What seems to give me the greatest pleasure is seeing someone else’s dog play on the beach, seeing a deer near the road or an otter in the sea off the coast at Monterey, or watching the little birds who come to bathe in the small ceramic bowl I set out in the garden.  The known and the unknown may lead to all kinds of enjoyment, but watching the antics of my two cats brings me the most pleasure the most often.

Kings

The last event of the winter holiday season that began with Christmas ended today, 6 January, with Reis (Kings).  The three kings (or wise men) came from the East bearing gifts for the infant Jesus, and whereas some gifts may be given on Christmas, here the custom of giving gifts on this day still continues.

Santa is gaining a foothold here although he doesn’t climb chimneys so much as balconies, but it’s the kings who children write their letters to, asking for their presents.  If they’re good, they may get what they ask for, but if they’re bad, they get a piece of charcoal.  You find candy versions of the black stuff at all the pastry shops.

Other differences have to do with mode of transportation -- Kings don’t ride reindeer-led sleighs.    Camels being hard to come by around here, the three kings enter each town in a variety of ways.  In towns on the coast like Barcelona, Tarragona, or even here at little L’Ametlla de Mar, they sail into the port under a burst of fireworks.  In other towns they arrive by train, carriage, or even helicopter.  From wherever they arrive, they tour the town in a parade of floats, throwing candy to the waiting public, accompanied by local groups and horsemen, often mounted police.  The parades are big and grand and bring the whole town out onto the streets on the night before Kings.  As with Christmas, children wake up on the day of Kings to find the presents the Kings had left for them.

I’m neither Catalan nor Catholic, but since coming here to live, I’ve always tried to adopt the holidays or traditions I can, without giving up who I am.  For Reis, there were no gifts at my house, but I did have the traditional tortell de Reis – a ring pastry made of brioche dough, topped with candied fruit and stuffed, in my case, with marzipan, the most traditional of the stuffings, and my personal favorite.  What’s especially nice about the tortell de Reis is that stuffed into the stuffing are two important items.  You need to know this or you might break a tooth, chewing too enthusiastically and perhaps imprudently into your piece of coffeecake.  The first is a small figure of a king, made of plastic, or if you’ve gone to a better bakery, ceramic.  Whoever finds that in their slice is king for the day and gets to wear the crown that every bakery packs in with the cake.  The second is a fava bean.  Whoever finds that in their slice gets to pay for the tortell.

The tortell is eaten in the morning, washed down with cava (all celebrations are accompanied by cava) and then followed by coffee.  At least that is how I do it at my house and is what I did this morning.  My friends George, Dorothy, and Eve came over, being forewarned that whoever got the bean would pay for the tortell.  Eve got stuck with the bean, but the king stayed buried until after they left when I went to cut up the remaining cake in order to put it away.

The after-Christmas sales (so to speak) in Spain start the day after Reis -- tomorrow.  The run on the stores is huge and unpleasant so it will be a good day to stay home, admire my new little figurine, and eat leftover tortell.  There was no leftover cava.