Catalan Culture 2004 Class Blog

lunes, diciembre 08, 2003

Question 1, about Moserat ( the monastery).
This Saturday we went to the monastery Moserat , by train, cabelcar and walking.
It’s a old monastery made by a monk. There was also abeautiful church ( catholic), so this church was overloaded with gold and statues of Jezus.
There was a coir of young boys, they were singing like girls.
In this church you can find the famous statue of the black Madonna, but it’s was to crowded to watch her.

After two ours we went to the mountains, first by train and after that: walking walking and walking. This was more than beautiful.
The mountains around Monserat are really strange,



Here is one pictures,

The erosion made this beautiful mountains, There were also many individual mountains and they looked like ……………. ( in Dutch. piemels, so if you want to know what it means…… look in the dictionary.
We made a two ours walking, and the most beautiful part was the top ( 1.230 high), the view was more than perfect: The Pyrenees.

So please go there with your girlfriend


Question 2, about the opinion of three people from Catalonia.


What makes Catalonia different compared Spain?

Person one:
People from Catalonia are more open minded, this maybe because this part of Spain is more international.
The style of Catalonia is more modern and they have of course there own language
The food is better etc.
The problem is that we urn more money: tourism, products etc., but we have to pay a lot to the government of Spain ( Madrid), so we are better of without Spain.
People from Catalonia are passionate, but not like the south, a lot of demonstrations etc.
This girl wasn’t really nationalistic, but of course the told me that many many people are fighting for a independent Catalina.


Person Two:
This person told me almost the same, like number one, but person two was more nationalistic.
He told me something about History:
In 1700 century, Spain ( Madrid) band the culture, language, Catalonian people of the rest of Spain.
Then came Franco, he started a war during the period of 1936 till 1939.
During his dictatorship ( till 1976) Catalonia was banded of the rest of Spain.
A this moment we related this history ( Franco) with for example Madrid.
WE WANT TO BE INDIPENTENT , We are rich without Spain.
So without Spain the social care, education etc. will be better than ever.

Person Three:
Of course she was also talking about the two persons before , so I’m not talking about that anymore.
Persons from Catalonia are more looking after their money. When they are going to drink something, they don’t want to pay for the rest of the group.
Catalan people are more close and serious. People from the south are really open ( creaming , dancing)
We are very reserved and shay, but if we know somebody…………… Than we are really friendly.


Question three. Event:The Lamerce

The Lamerce is a festival Barcelona, because of the hero Lamerce.
One week of craziness in the city
I saw the corrafoc, a fire play on Square Jaume. People with masks and some kind of firework played whit the audience. We didn’t know it was for real, but we had to run for our life. Youngsters were dancing under the fire, it was a crazy moment during the Lamerce.
We saw also the big big dolls, but I think they were more than boring, oke it’s a culture thing but………………….., man make something beautiful or important.
Also the castelliers were showing their tricks on square Jaume. This was more than surprising how they build a tour of human beings. And the little kinds on the top, wooohh………… that was a amazing.

During the festival week Lamerce was the BAM best the music part.
During 4 days the whole city was one big concert,
I saw Lee Screatch Perry; an old reggae singer from Jamaica ( he recorded some of Bob Marleys songs), on place de Ravall. This was a big dancing party, with a lot of beautiful people.
One of the biggest parties was located in Estacion de France. A big, big fiesta in the train station. You had to pay 10 euro, but the music and the ambiance was great. ( techno).

Maybe I will come back next year especially for this festival.


Question 4

About my expectations

My expectations of Living in Barcelona.
I had not so many expectations, but I thought that the people here in Barcelona were more passionate than the Dutch people. More open expressions, like dancing when there is a party. Dutch people are very modest ( they can only dance when they drink some beers). So this expectation turned out.
I looked forwards to the weather in Barcelona, but it rains a lot, not like in Holland, but I thought that they were not familiar whit this nature phenomenon.
I didn’t expect the nationality of the Catalan people, This is something unknown in Holland, only during a football match ( Holland- Spain for example).
I expected a lot of alternative youngsters and yes there are many alternative people., open-minded and respectful against the others
I’m vegetarian and that’s a big problem for me, because here in Spain is it almost impossible to find this kind of food. I didn’t know this, and in Holland are many vegetarian food products.
I thought that there ere many beautiful girls and that’s definitely true. In Holland the girls are blond and boring, but here……………………………………. Woooh…

I like this city so much and I’m sad that I have to leave this City.

by jop veldpaus

posted by blog-efl  [7:16 p. m.]

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