anyhow, since the cathedral is presumably still burnt out, i would rather come and see it on my way back, so i don´t really mind leaving barcelona a bit early. i spent this afternoon up at Montserrat monastery - which is just spectacular. it´s right up in the mountain and there are still about 80 monks living there, though how the poor fellows get any solitude or reflection in at all is beyond me, given the number of tour buses going past there every three seconds. anyhow. it is a beautiful place and the mountain views are spectacular. we had about 30 min free time after the official tour ended and i badly wanted to get to the wooden cross and chapel at the very top of the mountain, but didn´t realise how very high up it was. with the result that i climbed up and got to the top with 7 minutes to get back down again. call it good training for the camino, but i have never sprinted like that in my life, not even when i was trying to get through madrid airport. i ran down that mountain like a deer with its bottom on fire, and arrived at the bus a mere 4 minutes late. (it could have been worse.) i like to think the other passengers were less cross when they saw me purple from exertion. not the face of a person who was wilfully late. was it?
i finally found a sim card this morning after several hours of asking directions in entirely over-confident spanish, by which i mean i nodded enthusiastically at everything anyone said (this is something i do at home as well, i realise). i am getting very good at faking being able to speak the language and have found to my amazement that what works in english also works in spanish - that is, just smile a lot and pretend you know what is going on, and people seem to like you. fortunately i have had years of practice in this. i am telling you, being in a foreign country has been a humbling experience, not because i am more lost here, but because i am NOT more lost. it has really driven home how clueless i am as a matter of course, because honestly, it is no more overwhelming for me to try and understand directions in spanish than english.
On the way to Montserrat (which means ´serrated mountain´), we passed some fascinating architecture including a number of buildings done by Gaudi. Alistair, i tried to get a picture of his signature cross for you, but the bus was moving so I hope I got the cross and not, say, a blurry tree! Montserrat is named for the patron saint of catalunya, and the monks there have had their own printing press for centuries, with all texts in catalan. the tour guide seemed very proud of this, and added just as proudly that all the street signs in barcelona are in catalan. but i think she may have overestimated the bargaining power of the catalan people then, because in the two days i have been here i have seen a grand total of two street signs. it is utterly bizarre. there is this total absence of signage which makes my map-reading an even less scientific process than usual and involves counting blocks and hoping for the best. of course if you can´t see the street names you can´t at any time confirm you are actually going in the right direction, but so far i seem to have done okay. actually, more than okay. i am REALLY enjoying myself.
interestingly, for a city that can´t seem to manufacture a single effing sim card, they sure take good care of their eyesight. i have seen an optometrist on basically every corner and even the people handing out pamphlets are, half the time, advertising optometrists. there is also a totally unnatural number of pharmacies.
back to montserrat: it was a wonderful experience. the monastery sprang up after a statue of the virgin mary was located in a cave there in the 12th century. the legend goes that the statue was glowing and the monks went after the light to investigate and decided, upon finding her, to build a monastery on the spot. more prosaic accounts focus on the fact that this statue is one of a handful in europe that depicts mary as a black woman. the mystery is also how in the heck she got up into a cave at the top of an uninhabited mountain. there are various theories on why this virgin mary is black; some say it is a veiled pagan statue (as pagan statues were not allowed) and others say it was sculpted in Africa and got to the mountain in spain by some process that will probably remain a mystery forever. the statue itself is absolutely beautiful, i came over all catholic and took about a million photographs and even rubbed her hand, which is made of wood. she stands in glass in a beautiful room decorated in gold leaf and mosaic. i didn´t want to leave but the queue was moving fast and people were getting antsy so i took one last picture and went to find the cross at the top of the mountain.
interestingly, st. ignatius originally gave up his sword at montserrat (he was a soldier who had a change of heart during a long illness, when he read a number of religious texts in a relative´s house). but he didn´t like the monks at montserrat much, so gave them a wave - and founded the Jesuit order instead. so moet ´n bek mos praat.
i didn´t have time to explore the montserrat art museum, which started as a display of the monks´engravings and later grew, through donations, to a spectacular collection including caravaggio, monet and even picasso, as well as some other very well-known artists through the ages (i can´t list them all). i also wanted to buy some of the Montserrat schnapps; it is made out of a tree bark found on the mountain and although it is no longer made in the montserrat cellars by the monks, apparently is quite tasty even in its commercialised form. but then i remembered that i´d have to carry the drink for 800km, and thought better of it.
tonight the city is very lively; there is a match between barcelona and real madrid and from this afternoon already, ribbons were flying, cars were hooting and police were patrolling. but i´m going to get an early night because my train leaves at 7:35. Hold thumbs that i get a ticket!
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