Last Two Months: International Day at ASB

June 4th, 2016

This year, it was difficult finding support for the Japan table at the ASB International Day.  It seemed like all the people that had helped with the Japan table in years past, were helping with other tables or were out of town.  Fortunately I was able to get help from Midori and her husband Jaume.  They went above and beyond expectations by preparing and cooking 20Kg of yakitori in the scorching hot sun.  It was a big hit, much better than the curry rice we served for the past two years.

The Japan table hosts

A foam party

Cole covered in foam 

Ciara performing with the ASB Lynx cheerleaders

Last Two Months: Palau de la Música Catalana

May 31st, 2016

We could not leave Spain without going to a concert at the Palau de la Música which is one of the most famous modernist buildings in the city of Barcelona.  The Palau de la Música was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner between 1903 and 1905. 

Bob and I saw the Barcelona Guitar Trio and Dance, a tribute to Paco de Lucia.  It was an amazing concert.  Definitely one of the highlights of my 3 years in Spain.  It's the combination of being in such an incredible building, listening to beautiful guitar music and also watching passionate flamenco dancers that made the experience so memorable for me.  It was a reminder of everything that I love and will miss about Spain. 

A promotional video clip from the concert

The exterior of the Palau de la Música 

Inside the grand concert hall

Last two months: La Bisbal d'Empordà

May 27th, 2016

One of my favourite places in Spain, is the little town of La Bisbal d'Empordà which is about 1.5 hours from Barcelona by car on the Costa Brava. This town is famous for pottery, and you can spend an entire day browsing through the dozens of pottery shops.  Don't spend all your money at the first shop, as prices will vary from shop to shop so it's best to look through a few shops before committing.  Friday is also public market day when the downtown core is filled with vendors selling fruits and vegetables, houseware, clothing and just about anything else, local and imported.  Definitely worth the detour if you are headed down Costa Brava as it is only about 20 km from the beaches.  Also I highly recommend the restaurant where we stopped to grab some lunch.  It is called Cafeteria Bisbal Park, the patatas bravas were really good and the prices were very reasonable. 

Lunch break with Christine, Gorana, Karen and Manju

A pottery shop 

Lots of colourful pottery

Too much to choose from

Last Two Months: Girona

Monday May 16th was a holiday in Spain, la segunda pascua, or the second Easter.  Easter is such a big holiday in Spain, I guess they need to celebrate it twice.  Bob was traveling in the US, but the kids had no school so I decided to plan a little excursion to Girona and bring along Charo (my long-time visiting teaching companion) and her husband Angel.  Both Charo and Angel have been so kind to our family ever since we moved to Barcelona.  I was glad that we could take them out for the day.

I packed up the kids in the van and we picked up Charo and Angel and set off for Girona.  It was only an hour and 15min and we found free parking near the centre of the city.  I didn't realize that we were arriving the day after the Temps de Flors, a very famous festival in Girona where different artists and organizations decorate the city with giant floral arrangements.  We were fortunate to be able to see many of the floral arrangements before the city workers started dismantling them.

We started our tour of Girona at Plaça Catalunya where we climbed up to the medieval wall that used to protect city.  It is a great way to see the city from up high.  The kids really enjoyed walking along the wall and climbing up the towers.   We ended up at the Catedral de Girona which is surrounded by beautiful gardens and we walked through the commercial district back to Plaça Catalunya.

It was a beautiful day, and I promised the kids that we would go to the beach so we headed over to Playa D'Aro to grab some lunch and then went to the beach.  Of course this is mid May and the water was way too cold for most Spanish people.  I think that Rylan was the only one that actually went swimming. Charo and Angel enjoyed walking along the coast.  Costa Brava still has to be our favourite place to visit in Spain.

Charo and I inside a flower arrangement at the Jardin de la Infancia

Walking along Girona's fortified wall

view of the city inside the wall

View of the city outside of the wall

Jardins del Alemanys (German Gardens)

Strange floral display inside the German Gardens

Gardens around the Catedral

Floral display near the Catedral

Giant ants in a park in Playa D'Aro

Sant Pol beach

Rylan caught some really transparent jellyfish

Last two months: Recinte Sant Pau

It was clear, that we would have to leave Barcelona before July 1st.  So during our last few months in Spain, I felt the need to visit as many sights as I could that we had missed during the previous 3 years.  It just goes to show that even after 3 years of living in Barcelona, there was still so much more that we hadn't seen and done.

One of Barcelona's hidden gems is The Recinte Sant Pau, which used to be a fully operational hospital from the 1930s until 2009.  The hospital complex was designed by one of Catalunya's most famous architects, Lluís Domènech i Montaner in the Modernist period when Barcelona was booming and had plenty of money for ambitious projects.  What makes the Recinte Sant Pau even more incredible was the fact that it was a hospital for the poor, as the more wealthy could afford to be treated in their own homes.  Walking through the buildings and grounds you can't help but wonder what life would have been like in Barcelona at that time.  Each building is so elaborate and unique and always designed with the patients' happiness and comfort in mind.  They don't make buildings like this anymore, let alone hospitals.

This is a place that every visitor to Barcelona should see.  It's very close to the Sagrada Familia and because it's still relatively unknown, you don't have to buy tickets in advance or line up and deal with huge crowds. I recommend taking the guided tour, it's a little more expensive, but more interesting.  With a Barcelona Library card you do get a 20% discount.

Recinte Sant Pau, view of the centre courtyard and surrounding buildings

Main administrative building

One of the rooms for patients

Morocco Trip - Day 5

March 25th, 2016

Our last day in Marrakech was sunny and warm.  We decided to walk to the medina and on the way pass through Park El Harti which was supposed to be one of the nicer parks for children.  Inside are two enormous dinosaur slides made out of concrete.  They look really cool from a distance, but when the kids climbed on them they found out that the slides had been all hacked up and you could no longer slide on them, such a shame.  As well, all the swings had been taken down.  Verdict: lame park for kids, but a nice park for strolling through.

Park El-Harti

Rylan sistting on the head of the large cement dinosaur

Two cement dinosaurs

Once inside the walls of the medina we visited the Cyber Park Moulay Abdessalam which according to many websites was on the list of top places to visit with kids.  Again the Cyber Park is a nice place to walk around, but there is nothing for the kids to play on, although there is free Wifi.

Next we found our way to the Saadian tombs. The entrance price was really reasonable again, only 1€ per person and kids under 12 were free.  This royal necropolis was built in the 14th century but renovated and enlarged by Sultan Ahmad al-Mansour Saadi in the 15th century.  Al-Mansour died in 1603 and a few decades later when Moulay Ismail took over Marrakech he had the Badi palace destroyed and the tombs of his predecessors sealed up so that the people would forget about them. The tombs were not discovered again until 1917.  The two main mausoleums contain the tombs of 66 members of the royal family and outside in the gardens are 100 more tombs of princes, their wives, soldiers and some jews.

Cyper Park

Koutoubia Mosque

One of the gates to enter the Medina

Saadian Tombs

Some of the tombs outside 

The main chamber where the Sultan Al-Mansour is buried

more tombs in the garden

After visiting the Saadian Tombs we walked over to visit the El-Badi Palace that was also commissioned by Al-Mansour when he came to power in 1578 to be the home of the royal family.  It took 20 years to build and was once the most spectacular building in Morocco.  Sultan Ismail systematically looted the palace of all its fine building materials to construct his own palace in Meknes.  Now all that is left is the shell of the building, but it is easy to imagine how amazing it was during the Saadian dynasty.  The entrance fee is only 10 MAD (around 1€) and you can pay an additional 10 MAD to see the Koutoubia Minbar which is a pulpit made of cedar and covered with gold and silver.   We didn't pay to see the Koutoubia Minbar which I regret now, but the kids had fun exploring the palace ruins and from the tower you get a great view of the medina, the Atlas mountains and a lot of nesting cranes.  The palace is also used to display artwork from local artists.

Graffiti Wall

There are some art installations by local artists scattered throughout the palace

Crane perched on the walls of the palace

 

Dozens of cranes are nesting on the walls of the palace

You can see the Atlas mountains in the distance

Since it was our last day in Marrakech we decided to stay in the Medina for lunch and do a bit more shopping and then take a horse-drawn carriage back to the hotel.  Shopping without our guide was actually much easier than I thought it would be, in fact I think we were able to get better prices.  We picked up a carriage in Jemaa el-Fnaa Square and got a ride back to the hotel.   Back at the hotel it was finally sunny enough for the kids to use the outdoor pool, but the water was so cold that they could only bear to stay in for a few minutes.

Riding through the medina on a horse-drawn carriage

Walls decorated with pictures of the kings of Morocco 

The Moroccan tea set I bought on our second day in Morocco

The next morning we left for the airport right after breakfast.  This time we just took a taxi from right outside the hotel for 120 MAD.  I am so glad that we were able to visit Morocco before we leaving Spain.