MISCOMMUNICATION AND MORSELS

Today we split the class up and while Natalia did grammar stuff I had some students for conversation. We spoke about Halloween and La Castañada which is Spain's holiday on November 1, the reason why the city was so crazy on Sunday the 31st (No school or work the next day!). They are learning (for the 9th time, probably) the past simple, asking/answering questions, etc etc. One student, we'll call her Janet, was telling me that her family did this and that and also visited her Grandmother. So I asked, "Where does she live?" Janet didn't understand the question, I repeated it a couple times and she told me she understood the question but was still looking really bewildered. Finally she says, "the cemetery."

OOPS.

For La Castañada, Spaniards eat roasted chestnuts (castañas), sweet potatoes (boniatos) and true to all Spanish holidays (usually all religious), there is a special pastry called panallets. They are a delicious morsel made from almonds, pine nuts, sometimes coconut and sometimes chocolate. Tradition is to eat them while drinking a sweetish wine called Moscatel. It is really incredible to feel the warmth and smell the toasty wood of the open fires on every street corner, which literally, there are chestnut ladies roasting goodies everywhere you go.

In other news, reasons why you should come visit Barcelona:
·the pillow lounge isn't under construction anymore, it's fully ready for some serious lounging.
·we have an art wall, come add to it!
·and I'm here so uh...
·critical mass in Barcelona! but no need to have a bike.. Rollerblades only!
·I'll take you to sip on absinthe where Picasso, Gaudí, Dalí, Hemmingway and the like used to hang and get inspired

Lastly, if you haven't learned anything today: there are roughly 12,000,000 people in the world who speak Catalan. That is a lot more then I realized. Also, the first manuscript in Catalan, Les Homilies d'Organya dates back to the 11th or 12th century, ¡¡¡¡HISTORY!!!!

Catalan regions.. in all of the world