Cerdanya

Hi!  Sorry I haven't wrote in awhile..again haha Friday I had a very slow day.  I only had 4 classes and breaks after each one.  One of my breaks lasted over 2 hours!!  I went to Nyo's at got a coffee and doughnut while I read inside.  It was a rainy cold day again in Barcelona.  At the end of the day I was with Xavi and the sweetest class.  I was with a 2nd grade girls class and I adore them!!  They are so cute especially when I was trying to teach them because they loved listening to my English.  There were 3 other classes in the pool and it got SO loud that I was screaming just trying to give directions, definitely not used to doing that especially in the gym at home.  Xavi and I were talking about what we were doing this weekend and he is going to the mountains too but south from Barcelona and he is going to run in a race and we talked about a beer that Rudy told me to try and no one has even heard of it.  Alex, Xavi, the head swimming coordinator, and the other PE teacher (I forgot his name) had no idea and we ended up googling it.  Krieck is a Belgium beer that comes in a lot of flavors but they said that Barcelona doesn't sale it that they know of.  Who knows.  Any who, it was the last day for the student teachers that are from here.  For lunch we celebrated and got pizza, potato fries, chips etc.  The pizza was delicious...it is from Boston Pizza and we are going to try and find the place to get more sometime soon.
Once I got home from school I started to pack for Cerdanya.  It is not pronounced sur-dan-yeah  but by having a lisp.  THUR-DAWN-YAH.  We left around 9:30ish and got there close to 11.  On the way there I got to go through the longest tunnel in Spain which is around 3 miles long I think.  On the way up it was raining and the temperature started to decrease.  At one point I was about to tell Nacho to pull over because I thought I was getting car sick, which never happens to me.  I am not used to going up mountains and around turns at high speed.  It was getting to me.  At one point I shut my eyes thinking that would help but oh no it made me more dizzy!! Thank goodness we were close at this point.
We pulled up to the house and it is beautiful even though it is right next to a cemetery.  Their house is split in half where they share with another family. Their house is 3 stories made of stone and wood which is mandatory in every village in Cerdanya.  I would love to have a house in the mountains like this one!  The windows remind me of Beauty and the Beast how Belle swings the wooden windows open because that's how you open the windows here!  It was neat.  When you looked out the windows you could see the mountains and the horses in the back yard.  In the morning I took a picture out one of the windows and then 15 minutes later it started snowing...hard.  It wasn't even cold but it was sticking to the ground and it made really good snowballs!  The kids and I went outside and walked around the village and we had a mini snow ball fight until Pablo got cold.  Later on we went to town which is around 30 minutes away-it is the closest place to get food and gas from their village.  At one point we entered France to get to the market!  As soon as you crossed over all the buildings looked the same other than the signs were now in French.  We drove around and they wanted to take me down by the river but the snow picked up even more.  But they told me that fireworks go off at night and you can have picnics by the river..Nacho says it's a place for "lovers", very romantic.
On the way back to the house, Patricia showed me where the first houses that were built in Cerdanya.  They are bigger houses and the owner of Donuts actually owns a house there!  Donuts is a brand name here and the doughnuts are AMAZING.  But the houses around there cost around 1 million euros.  For dinner I had a Catalina delicacy.  It is called pa amb tomaquet which is in Catalan not Spanish.  It stands for bread with tomato.  I am definitely going to do this when I get back home.

You need: bread, tomatoes, garlic (optional), olive oil, and salt
Cut the bread into slices and cut the tomato in half.  You can toast your bread if you want.  Next, take the tomato and rub it all over the bread then take the salt and sprinkle salt all over it.  After take the oil and pour over bread.  If you want to try the garlic cut the garlic into pieces and rub the garlic on the bread FIRST then follow what to do with the tomato and others.  It is kind of like burshetta minus the tomato chunks.  Having the garlic gives it a different kind of taste but still good!

 I played soccer with Guillermo, Alejandra, Maria and her brother who live next door, and Inaki.  It stopped snowing for a bit and everything melted so we went and played.  After awhile, the girls and I rode our bikes to see the horses down the rode.  It ended up sleeting!!  Woah talk about cold and your face hurting from it hitting you!  Once we got to the place you could barely see the horses, they were taking cover by a building so we hurried back home to warm up.  Later we watched Barcelona Hand Ball which was neat seeing the guy I told you about play!  He is actually REALLY good!! He is number 9 and is one of the top 5 best hand ball players according to Nacho.  They were playing in the final four and needed to win by 5 and they ended up winning by 8 I think!  The game was in Barcelona and the stadium went nuts when the game was over!

Today after church we had to hurry back to Barcelona because it started snowing really hard.  They said if we didn't pack up now we would get stranded there!  Once we got on the road it was covered with snow!!  I really thought we would get stranded but we made it A-OK.  We are having another Birthday party since yesterday (Saturday) was Pablo and Jorge's 3rd Birthday!