Más Montserrat

Necesito escribir más en castellano. (En España, hablamos castellano. Español es lo que los latinoamericanos hablan.) En Catalunya, donde podéis encontrar Barcelona, la gente habla catalán y castellano, pero estudio español en los Estados Unidos y todos mis clases aquí son en castellano. Además estoy hablando con un accente español, pronunciando mi c y z como "the".

Anyway, I did not talk enough about Montserrat, the wonderful mountain monastery we visited on Saturday. First of all, I woke up late Saturday morning, nearly missing (and causing 6 or so other people to miss) the 10:40 train. We got to the Montserrat train station about an hour later, from which we took a cable car (no more than 5 minutes long) to the actual "village," if it can even be called that. 

Basically it is a monastery (although I did not see any monks) and a beautiful church with some tourist amenities (gift shops, hotel, restaurant). We hoped to see a very famous boys choir perform but apparently they didn't sing on Saturdays. We first got coffee/snacks (snack time as its own meal is called in Spain "merienda"). Hence my suizo. We then all went to see the church. The story of Montserrat, which means "jagged mountain," is that a church was built there 1025 to commemorate someone's vision there of the Virgin Mary. Everything was destroyed by Napoleon in the 19th century, but later rebuilt. The thing they are famous for is the 'blackened Madonna,' a wooden statue from the 1100s of Mary and Jesus that has turned black after years of candle smoke. 

The church is very pretty but not very old, having been built in the 1800s. It is a weird mix of architectural styles, but I would say leans mostly toward Romanticism. There is a really beautiful hallway with incredible mosaic tiling. There is also a lovely courtyard. The blackened Madonna ("La Moreneta") is holding an orb that you are supposed to touch for good luck. The rest of the statue is encased in glass. I don't think it worked for me because I had a really bad cold the next day. Maybe it was my lack of piety though.

After seeing the church we decided to hike up the mountain. It was very cold since it was on a mountain. Plus it wasn't really a hike, it was going up stairs. Endless, endless stairs. But we made it up pretty far. (Some hiker guy told us that further up there was ice, and some people were wearing boots and other such unsuitable footwear.) But up at the top I ate the little sandwich my señora had made for me and was happy enough going back down. Here I am after reaching the furthest place we went. By the way, behind that wall is a drop of like thousands of feet. Ok, maybe more like hundreds, but it still means certain death. Which is why sitting on there even for 2 seconds to get my picture taken required extreme will power.

We spent the last part of our time there looking out over a vista and taking pictures. The views from the mountain were incredible. And one more thing. The rocks had some 'interesting' shapes. See for yourself.