Baby It's Cold Outside

It always amazes me that so many Brits move to Spain for the weather.  No one from California would.  The weather anywhere in California (except maybe the Mojave desert) is much better than here, and especially in the San Francisco Bay Area which once was my home.  Here it is hotter (and very humid) in the summer and colder in the winter.  And don’t expect to find natural gas service unless you move to a city or town.  Many villages don’t have city gas and none of the rural areas do. 

It doesn’t rain much and only snows in the mountains.  What is nice in this area is that the Pyrenees are close by, you only have to go for a walk to see snow-covered mountains, and you don’t have to shovel it.  This suits me just fine.

At least now that I live in an apartment instead of the lovely villa that had a pool but no insulation and no central heating (which is typical of houses in the resort areas intended only for summer use), I can be comfortable when winter sets in.   In fact, it is a real pleasure to sit in a warm home when you know it’s cold outside.  I live in town and I have city gas.  It’s the first time since we lived in Tarragona that I’m warm at home in the winter.  I have a small apartment and a radiator in every room.  And I am truly grateful.

The cats are also grateful

On The Road: Aiguamolls (Marshlands)

I meant to create a post about Reis, (Kings), and the parade on the evening of the 5^th of January when the Three Wise Men rode into town on floats, attended by lots of colorful characters.  But my photos weren’t turning out well, and the streets were so packed that I couldn’t endure the crowds so I went home.  Nonetheless, I did learn something from the experience: first, that I can’t stand being in large crowds, and second, that I need to buy a book on photography.

So, instead of giving you the Calvalcada dels Reis, I give you the nearby Aiguamolls (marshlands) that I recently discovered and have visited twice.  This nature reserve is just 20 minutes away and much more to my liking.  There are no crowds – just peace and quiet and birds, although I didn’t get any good shots of them either!

For more information:
http://www.roses.cat/en/Turisme/Natura/AiguamollsEmporda.aspx

Common Sense

Connections should come from somewhere and go to somewhere.  So says Slim Kallas, European Commissioner for Transport in talking about Spain.

This novel idea has not caught on in Spain, which still builds on the medieval urban plan, where all roads radiate out from the center, which is Madrid.  This, of course, makes for the situation of "you can't get there from here" and forces you to backtrack in order to go forward. 

In general, creating infrastructure for business to flourish has not caught on.  Spain has more high speed train track than any other country in Europe, but for much of the journey along the Mediterranean, freight trains coming from or going to France (and the rest of Europe) still share a single track with conventional commuter and long distance trains.  This means frequent waits at stations to allow another train to pass on the single track.  In all the twenty years of high-speed building, nothing has been done to upgrade the conventional freight or passenger rail system.

Then there is the new container port in Barcelona.  Paid for by Chinese investors, the Spanish government couldn't get it together to put in the promised rail link that would connect the new port to that above-mentioned rail line and left it stranded.  The Catalans, knowing that they need these kinds of facilities in order to live long and prosper, came up with a quick fix.

We could talk about airports where no planes ever take off or land, or Olympic-quality sports arenas in tiny villages.  And we could talk about corruption at all levels of government and in every ministry, and even in the Royal family.

What Spain lacks is what the Catalans call seny, which means understanding, good judgment, or common sense.  It’s no wonder that the Catalans, who value seny and consider it one of their characteristic traits, want out.

Under Spanish law, public buildings must fly the Spanish flag.  But in Catalunya, there are some towns that don’t want to, and only have the Catalan and EU flags hoisted.  In order to avoid legal problems, one small town decided that, since it doesn’t say what size the flag has to be, any size will do and thus, in their good judgment, they have hoisted this.

For more related reading, I recommend the following:

One of the best articles I've seen about Catalan Independence from an economic point of view, from The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/nov/22/catalonia-independence-business-economy-spain

Translation of an article in a Catalan newspaper, about the problems with Spanish economic policy

http://www.collectiuemma.cat/noticia/they-should-keep-their-mouths-shut-ara

Not about economics, this 60 Minute piece (a 13-minute segment) about the Barcelona Futbol Club talks about a lot more than just soccer that is so good, it was broadcast last night on Catalan television after the Barcelona-Malaga soccer match where Barca won 5-0!
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138328n

On the Road: Besalú

I’m on the road again.

I didn’t used to have this problem of not wanting to drive; I used to drive everywhere and loved exploring by car.  I could drive all day.  I drove to Los Angeles and back from the Bay Area many times, often alone, and drove cross-country several times too, although those trips were never alone.  But I was younger then, and I was in the USA then – the USA where although it is much easier to get a driver’s license, it is also much safer on the roads.

Here in Spain, the roads are chaos.  To go on the road is to take your life in your hands, or worse, put it in the hands of idiots you don’t know.  These drivers passed very difficult driving tests but they didn’t learn enough to respect speed or safety laws. 

There is rarely any consequence to breaking road rules, as long as you don’t end up in a wreck.  There are no highway patrols, only ad hoc stationary check points where they stop you to see if you’re drunk, and stationary radars that are announced in advance so that only a moron wouldn’t know to slow until they pass them.  Here, I’m much more reticent about driving, especially driving alone to someplace new. 

In any case, last week I got into my car and drove to Besalú, which turned out to be a very easy drive.  Besalú is less than half an hour away!  If I had realized how close it was and how easy the drive was, I would have gone much sooner, because Besalú is a pretty little village and definitely worth seeing. 

Besalú has 2000 inhabitants, some nice shops, its medieval center is full of old stone buildings, narrow streets, an arcaded village square, a church built in the 10^th century, a restored Jewish mikveh and the ghost of a medieval synagogue.  But it is most famous for its splendid 12^th century Romanesque bridge that, unusually, halfway across its span takes a turn.  Most of the bridge supports rest on huge in situ boulders that the architect/mason took advantage of when he designed the bridge.  It is a beautiful piece of architecture.

The mikveh was closed so I didn’t get to see it.  But that gives me a good excuse to go back again soon.

Don't know how they got in
much less how they will get out



Sant Pere, church of the former Benedictine
monastery, founded 977 AD

Dangerous door

Catalan Independence flags
are found everywhere

Besalú Tourist Office
http://www.besalu.cat/turisme/?lang=en

Christmas in Figueres

At home

When I wished him a Merry Christmas, someone, who should have known better, started to wish me a Merry Christmas back, but then corrected himself, Oh, but you don’t celebrate Christmas.

In fact, I have always celebrated Christmas.  My family had a Christmas tree every year when I was growing up, and throughout their lives, we always exchanged gifts at Christmas.  When I was married to Joe, a lapsed Catholic, I would have a tree.

I also light candles for Chanuka and usually make latkes.  I send Chanuka cards to friends who celebrate it, and more generalized holiday cards to others.  I’ve even made my own holiday cards.  I like celebrating holidays and Christmas is one that is hard to avoid if you live in the western world.  I don’t celebrate the religious meaning of Christmas (nor of Chanuka, for that matter).  But as an enjoyable winter holiday with good food, gifts, cards and letters to friends I haven’t seen for some time, and sentiments of peace and goodwill, it works for me.

Since coming to Catalunya, I have adopted the caganer as my one and only Christmas ornament.  The caganer (shitter) is the uniquely Catalan figure that squats and shits somewhere in most people’s nativity scenes at home as well as in many shop windows and that, for me, is the most endearing characteristic of the Catalans.  A people that has invented a little figure smoking and shitting and puts him near the figure of the baby Jesus when they celebrate Christmas, is a people that deserves its own independent state.  A caganer is also often included in public nativity scenes, as in the one put up by the City Hall of Barcelona in the Plaça Sant Jaume.  Not surprisingly, it is never included in nativity scenes at churches.  Mine doesn’t sit in a crèche, it just sits on the shelf.

I have read about the caganer but no one seems to know how it originated.  They say it represents the Catalan character: a wee bit irreverent, unpretentious and down-to-earth, with a trace of humor.  This also works for me.

But he who thought I don’t celebrate Christmas was right in one way.  Christmas is not a holiday you can celebrate alone, and this year, I didn’t really celebrate.  I did make a slightly fancier lunch than usual and bought myself a nice pastry, drank better wine, and ate torró, the Catalan Christmas candy.  But lunch was in front of the television, as usual, watching the midday news.  Eventually, I took the caganer for a walk around town.

Bon Nadal!

 

On La Rambla

 

At the Dali Museum

 



No Soap, Mafia

On today’s mid-day news there was a story of a Marseille mafia chief who was arrested here in Catalunya.  He led a big drug ring that brought cocaine from Central American to Europe.  He wasn't passing through.  He lives here, in Castelló d’Empúries, a village just twenty minutes away and where I’ve visited a couple of times.  Not only does he live and own a bar there, his wife owns the soaps and scents shop where I bought the sabon de Marseille that is sitting in the soap dish at the sink in my bathroom at this very moment.  I wonder if the soap will reveal any surprise as it wears down.  Crime aside, Castelló d’Empúries is a very pretty village and I will certainly visit there again, although I’m not sure I’ll be buying any soap.

Carrer Jueus

Inching to Independence

Laundry & Independence
Girona

The Catalans are inching their way to independence.  Later this evening the two majority parties (CIU who will head the government and ERC who will lead the opposition) will announce their agreement for the running of the next session.  Monday the new Parliament will hold its first meeting, and by the end of the week the President will be elected.  This will be Artur Mas, the fearless leader who did not start the current rampage for independence, but has taken it upon himself to carry it out.

As the Catalans quietly and peacefully move down their road, Madrid is on the attack.  They attacked Artur Mas in the second week of the two-week campaign with unsubstantiated accusations that he has bank accounts in Switzerland.  This accusation was in the form of a police report “leak” to a Madrid newspaper.  After the election was over it was discovered that the “leak” did not come from any Spanish police agency and that there was no such report.  Hopefully someday someone will discover where the phony material did come from and those responsible for that smear will be brought to court for willfully disrupting the democratic process. 

It was interesting at the time, that when Artur Mas asked the Minister of the Interior to explain where the report came from, the Minister’s response was it was not for him to explain but for Artur Mas to explain about his accounts in Switzerland.  If anyone had any doubt that Spain was a Third World country, the response of that minister alone should have resolved that doubt.  Cynicism in Spain is a national pastime.

That episode may have cost CIU and Artur Mas some seats in the parliament, but if so, they went to ERC, a Catalan nationalist party that is even more supportive of independence than CIU.  This means that they will need to work together to make this next legislative session a success, and so it is that they have been meeting and discussing and will announce their agreement tonight.

After the elections were over, the Spanish government and Madrid newspapers all celebrated the fact that CIU had lost and that independence was a dead issue.  I suppose they did that for dramatic effect. It was easy enough for a grade school kid to add up the numbers and see that this was not true.  I think most Spaniards who do not live in Catalunya read the Madrid newspapers and watch Spanish television (here most people watch Catalan television) and unfortunately don’t think for themselves, so the general public probably believed what its government leaders were saying.

But as I posted recently, the pro-independence parties won a majority of the seats in the new Catalan parliament and anyone who can add, or who can use a calculator, could have figured out that the Madrid politicians and their newspaper friends were lying.

So this last week the Spanish Minister of Education launched a new attack, this time on the use of the Catalan language within the Catalan school system.  Without going into the details, this new proposed law would be equivalent to the Federal Government in Washington suddenly dictating how all schools in every state were to be run, changing the curriculum of each state to conform to a national curriculum, and dictating that final exams for graduation would be written in Washington and sent to each state to be implemented.  Except that here there is more at stake because it would mean the elimination of Catalan as the language used in Catalan schools.  This would be a grave attack on Catalan culture and identity.

The Catalans are having none of this and have protested.  It doesn’t look likely that Madrid will back down, in which case I think the Catalans will take the matter to the Spanish Constitutional Court since it is each autonomous community that is responsible for its own educational system and not the central government.  Or, they will simply go ahead and conduct their schools as they have been.  It seems to me that day by day, the independence movement is gathering more supporters as Madrid becomes more and more hostile and antagonistic to Catalunya. 

But just so you know that I do more than watch the news and marvel at Spanish cynicism, this week I made a brief trip to Girona.  I went to see the Christmas market but found it very small and disappointing, so took a few photos of the parts of town I found lovely, down by the river.