(Gerona, Spain) - From Old People Dancing to Gerona

10 AM

Sitting on the Renfe train provides for excellent blogging time :) Five of my flatmates and I are currently headed from Barcelona to Gerona, a small city to the north. Even further north of Gerona is a city called Figueres where Salvador Dali was born. The train gives you an amazing view of the countryside.

(Gulchen, Erida, Maurice, Milan, Genny)

Yesterday, we decided to go to the beach near Barceloneta. I didn't take anything with me because I wanted to run the shore line. No camera, no laptop, no phone, nothing. Yeah, we ended up not going to the beach at all but instead we saw all these amazing things and met amazing people and I couldn't get photos of any of it.

Milan, a 25 yo Serbian medical student, walked around with me in Barri Gotic (the Gothic Quarter) admiring all the architecture. He told me a little bit about his life as a child when NATO was bombing all of Serbia. For forty days they didn't go to school and all the neighborhood kids would gather around in a basement. He said back then he really enjoyed it b/c he didn't understand what was going on. A child's innocence is a fragile thing really (but that’s another post and conversation that we should have). He explained a little bit about former Yugoslavia and the breakup into Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia. I didn't get all of it but I guess this is what I was seeking in traveling. Through my encounter with Milan, now I have a reason to know. A place in my mind to place this information.

As we were walking we happened upon a music festival in one of the city squares. We saw these old Catalonians dancing the Sardanista dance and Maurice mentioned how it looked like they were barely moving.

It turns out that it is actually a very complicated Catalonian dance. Once we listened to the beat, it was really hard to stay on the '1' beat. And some how it cycles 33 times before the steps change (and the steps change 3 times). I still actually don’t know how to explain it.

We walked through the park….

***BREAK***

8 PM

WOW…Okay so we arrived at Gerona way faster than I thought we would and I had to stop midsentence to get off the train. I'm back on the train headed back to Barcelona now. What a beautiful day it has been. We arrived in Gerona totally and completely lost. As we walked out of the train station, we had no idea which way was north or south. The group was excited about this river that we kept hearing about but when we got there the "river" was a foot deep and three feet wide. I guess they were having a drought or something b/c it wasn't impressive.

A few meters away (yes meters…apparently that’s what these crazies use here?!?!?...like that makes sense) we saw the beginning of the roman city wall that runs around the perimeter of Old Gerona. You can walk along the city wall and make a complete circle around the city. The ledge were you walk is narrow but elevated and they had little slits that I'm assuming archers would use to defend the city in the distant past. On one side of the wall you can look and see the whole city and on the other side you can look out onto what long ago would be where the enemies would be coming from.

It was very much like a castle to me, yet this wall defended the city. The walls and stones used to make the steps up and down the city wall and city streets were "rough" compared to what we have today. But at the same time it was really precise and you could tell that it was made with a lot of care. As we walked, I wondered about how many men would have died trying to breach these walls to take the city. To my limited knowledge, I know this city was taken at least twice: once by the Muslims when they took over Spain and pushed into France, and once when it was reclaimed by the Christians. So how many men? Our trip was very fleeting and we flew through the city in one day but how many men spent there lives building this place and how many men died attacking and defending this small city that I had never heard of before two days ago. I guess its more profound if you're here.

We moved towards the center of the old city and found the Cathedral that was build over the place where a Masjid used to be. Oh My God….there was so much Christianity around me (<---get it?). La Catedral de Gerona was maybe the second Cathedral that I have been in my life so the grandeur and attention to detail in the architecture was overwhelming. Its also a building that is at least 1000 years old (I'll look it up once I get some wifi in my life). From the dimly lit Cathedral, I walked out back into the sunlight and onto the steps that led up to its massive doors. As Mike Mallah, I felt that there was only one thing to do in this historically Christian place…I played the Islamic Call to Prayer on my iPhone. I swear to God (hehe) this was not planned, but right then the church bells started to chime. Oh its so good to be me :)

We followed it up with a meal from a corner restaurant where we met some Peruvian students from London who were sight seeing (Shout out to Dan, Claudia, and Ginny…I told them all about you). And now to Barcelona.