Our Pyrenees Hideaway

For three days we disappeared into the rocky depths of the Pyrenees ... if only they had swallowed us up for a little longer... We were extremely lucky to find a remote little farmhouse, beautifully furnished, nestled in a spectacular valley, surrounded by rocky cliffs and gurgling streams. The air was crisp and clear and the constant tinkling of cattle bells wafted up the valley to our little retreat.

We left Barcelona assuming a tapas bar could be found on every other corner - even in the mountains. Unfortunately, we were quite unprepared for our isolation and had to eat a meal of just dry bread, olive oil and salt on our first evening. But the views were definitely worth it.

We then ventured into the neighbouring towns of Salsona and Cardona - not just for some sustenance but also for some local 'excitement'... we found a bull ring in the middle of Cardona but no bulls, so the girls had to re-enact the fight for us. Interestingly, bull fighting was banned in Barcelona in July 2010!! And due to be fully enforced in 2012. This is partly humane and partly to differentiate themselves from the Spanish. Barcelonians are Catalan.

Also in Cardona is a magnificent (now dis-used) salt mine. The salt came from the ocean which was swept aside when Africa crashed into Europe 40 million years ago, causing the Pyrenees to rise up from the ocean bed. The salt was gradually restructured into a mountain - which has been mined since 2,500BC. The local medieval knights were known as the rich Lords of the Salt. Mining stopped in 1990 due to the cost and risks associated with extracting the remaining salt, now most concentrated 1km below the surface. It is an exceptionally beautiful mine - with numerous caves filled with snow white or rusty red salt stalactites and stalagmites.

In the mountains the only early risers (apart from our two daughters) were the cows and the mushroom hunters. Both species roamed the mountains in the morning and spent the afternoons slumbering!!

Ignatius di Loyola Pilgrimage

I am sure our Saint Ignatius School friends would be most impressed (and for those who know us well - moderately amused) to hear we embarked upon our own little Ignatius di Loyola pilgrimage across the Catalonian countryside. The path to our pyrenees hideaway traversed two pivotal sites where Ignatius underwent his transformation from roving Basque knight to a pious priest motivated to do good. I might too, if I'd been wounded by a canon and had to spend my days limping about Europe.

Our first stop was at the magnificent Montserrat Monastery perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Catalian countryside. Montserrat (which we think must mean serrated mountain) is where Ignatius in 1522 experienced a vision of Mary and Jesus - which cemented his plans to leave his employment as knight and enter the church.

The monastery was swarming with tourists, which may be why we managed to bump into friends from both Adelaide and Edinburgh!! Amazing.

A few more kilometers inland was the town of Manresa (check out the address of the highschool...) where Igantius travelled to after Montserrat. Its large church had a plaza dedicated to him. During his stay in Manresa he spent most of his time praying in a cave - up to 7 hours a day. Apart from the church there's not much else appealing about Manresa - we recommend only a short visit. But back to Ignatius, by 1540 he had written the Jesuit Constitutions and in 1548 the Spiritual Exercises. He died not long after in Rome (1556) of malaria.

Maybe our next visit to Spain will include a visit to his birth place in the Basque country!?

Beautiful Barcelona

We recently escaped the Vaterland - travelling south for a little more sunshine (given the German summer was almost non-existent) to the stunning city of Barcelona. Hubertus attended the ERS (European Respiratory Society) conference at Fira Europa (it was supposed to be at Fira Espanol but they changed location without telling the 39,000 delegates....) and the girls and I explored the magnificent city.

On the surface, Barcelona looks pretty unattractive. The standard family lives in small apartments in buildings which look distinctly run-down - most wiring is external, pinned to the crumbly walls with large rusty nails; the paint work is usually peeling; laundry is dried on external lines under everyones' windows (if something drops it's history); the footsteps and voices of your immediate neighbours are always audible; there are four traffic peak hours at 9am; 12pm; 3pm and 8pm - due to the 3 hour semester enjoyed by everyone; and unless you have both double glazing and roller shutters on your windows the noise from the traffic and tourists will keep you awake to well past midnight most evenings (I think Monday was the only quiet night, then the noise slowly escalated daily to Saturday!). There are also many pickpockets just waiting for you to absentmindedly open your backpack or place your camera down for just a second. And everyone in Barcelona seems to smoke - it's revolting. Apparently they introduced optional legislation to prohibit smoking in restaurants and pubs, but those that adopted it lost so many customers they decided to revert back to old ways rapidly. Also can you believe that if you work for the Govt or a post office you need only turn up between 10 and 12:30pm Mon to Sat!!! Coor blimey! There are 1.6million residents in Barcelona and up to 5 million tourists - over the span of a year!!

However, scratch the surface and you will discover the most beautiful ancient streets reserved for pedestrians, winding through medieval buildings, churches; under archways and occasionally opening up to reveal a scrumptious market packed with local delicacies. The food is fresh and fast - we even managed to get the girls to try squid-ink paella - and they loved it! The place is riddled with museums of famous artists (Miro, Picasso) or architects (Gaudi); there are zillions of fabulous Spanish designer boutiques for jewellery and fashion; and the buskers on Las Rambla are truly amazing!

Although the standard tourist sites such a La Sagrada Familia; Casa Bastlle; Miro Museum; Picasso Museum; Las Rambla; the harbour; Parc Guell; FCBarcelona Stadium; The Olympic Stadium; etc etc are essential places to visit - the best discoveries were off the beaten trail (such as their amazing Science Museum and Planetarium - we spent 6 hours there and still did not see all of it. And a local ballet for children). It was some much needed sanity, to escape the tourist throng and witness the local traditions and customs.

Despite having no Spanish or Catalan it is quiet easy to interpret written text (interpreting the spoken word was totally impossible) - Catalan is esp close to French. Only the locals employed in heavily visited tourist sites could speak English - but leave these places and suddenly no-one can speak a word of English. Nor could anyone we came across speak German and when I told them I was trying to learn it they all shook their heads in sympathy!! ;) Most amusing of all are their English translations at the tourist sites - see photo above!

Australia Vs Deutschland

You can see from these photos, it's quite a challenge getting a German child to smile ..... something that is maintain through out life....

We're just about to complete week 2 of school in Germany and reality is hitting us a little. Steph's thirst for conversation is largely unsatisfied at school with her limited German. Dividing air-time between the girls has always been a bit of a challenge - but now after school both have so much say, having been bottled up all day, I need two sets of ears.

The girls and I have come up with a list of 'differences' between their Australian and their German schools, the most glaringly obvious one is the clothing...

Uniforms or not?

There are no uniforms worn in school in Germany. This means we've had to purchase a stack of new clothes. I'm missing the uniformity of a uniform, the girls have a heightened sense of fashion already, which can be quite tedious in the mornings. Casual clothes certainly enable kids to individualise themselves, there's one little girl I was convinced was a boy until I saw her name and Mia is now obsessed with unicorn ear-rings. Fortunately fashion has never been very important to Steph.

Food

Our State in Germany (NRW) has committed to providing hot meals to all children who need to stay longer than the usual pick-up time of 12:30pm. However, they have run out of funding or capacity (or both) and on the two days our girls stay back until 2:30pm they are given cold vegetables and fruit. However, all children are also give a bottle of flavoured milk for morning tea, which the girls find quite special. There are no tuckshops.

Birthdays

Birthdays are celebrated in the class with parents providing the usual lollies and sweet for every child. However, when they sing Happy Birthday it is in both English and German and the child is lifted in the air on a chair once for every year old he/she is. So far no-one has fallen off yet....

English Lessons

English lessons start in Year 1, so it's the favourite lesson for Steph and Mia ... finally they can answer the questions! The teacher has already taught the classes to count to 20; greet each other and know the colours. All language learning seems to be through songs and games.

Welcoming Ceremony

The new students have a truly beautiful welcoming ceremony (see earlier Blog entry). The participation of the entire school is the nicest part and by the end of Day 1 each new child is bubbling with enthusiasm and a positive sense of growing up.

Sport

As the days are so short, we were not expecting to do much sport at school. However, we were wrong. Every Monday the entire school heads to the local indoor swimming pool for 2 hours and every Friday they go to a local sports hall for another 2 hours. Sports Day was cancelled last Term as it was too hot, so they have rescheduled to Monday. They will start the day by marching all the children 5km into a local forest. Afterwhich they will perform sport until midday and then no doubt gratefully catch the bus home again.

Communication with the Teachers

This is terrible. There are no school diaries for parents to write little reminders or express concern etc to the teachers, so every morning a queue of parents stand in line for up to 30min. The teachers don't send home monthly letters outlining the curriculum, planned activities etc. We're completely in the dark about what they are learning until they bring some homework home. And even that is a trial as the children are expected to write their homework duties in a book, which of course is beyond the ability of Steph and Mia at this stage, so we guess what might be nice to do every evening. Reading is definitely not a top priority as it is at St Igs!

Social Calendar

There are none. There are no mechanisms for parents to get to know each other apart from brief conversations at collection time. I really miss having a class representative parent and a few coffee sessions with other Mums.

Discipline.

Compared to St Ignatius there is very very little discipline. Some kids run amok. Yesterday Mia was whipped on the stomach by some child who took a home-made whip to school. It took far too long before a teacher realised what was happening in the yard. When Steph's teacher restructured the class, some children came in and started re-arranging the furniture before the start of school.We mentioned that maybe a point system for positive and negative behaviour might be useful. Now Steph's teacher has one, but with no obvious consequences....? ie very little affect.

So all up we are missing school in Australia. There are days when Mia is overjoyed with the day and others where she is utterly miserable - which is exactly as it was in Australia. Steph is in a trough - no doubt her need to communicate will rapidly propel her to learn some German.

Festivities

This weekend we visited friends in Oberhausen who took us to their local theatre group, which hosted an open day of theatrical activities. We saw a gorgeous little bi-lingual play called "Leckerschmecker". It featured a tiny mouse who got lost in Germany who was trying to find his way home to London. He couldn't speak any German, so needed quite a lot of audience participation to find the correct words to use. Naturally, there were two little Aussies, more than willing to scream out the correct English or German words!

We've had a few big family events with Hubertus' b'day, Oma's 89th birthday and Uncle Norbert's 77th. Samantha is fast becoming known as the queen of pavlovas, so far she has whipped up three - which is three times more than she's ever made before!!

It's Federweisser season here at last. This is a delicious bubbly wine, still fermenting. It is usually consumed with scrumptious Zwiebelkuchen - preferably overlooking a vineyard on the Moselle.

We've also recently discovered a local bottleshop which has a handsome supply of Peter Lehmen wine. The shop assistant referred to PL as "the King of the Barossa"....!! So whenever we feel homesick (or come up with any other excuse) we take a bottle home. Prost!