Barcelona - the Giants

It's half term (for Norwegians, this is like the good old høstferie) and I've spent the last five days in Barcelona with my friend Kari. None of us had been there before, and we're both very much in love with the city now! On the first night, we were just walking around in the Bario Gotic, trying to absorb the atmosphere, when we suddenly bumped into a great party of Giants outside the Iglesia Santa del Mar.


It was kind of crazy, and we didn't really understand what was going on, but it turns out that Barcelona and all its surrounding cities have their local giants, and now all these giants were gathering in Barcelona for a very long parade in the streets of this lovely city!

You may ask yourself: How do they manage to move these giants? Well, each giant was carried by a really strong man (or woman?) and there was some kind of system that actually enabled them to make the giants twirl around in the streets. Very fascinating! (And a bit scary when they got too close....)



I have sooo many pictures and soooo many things I want to share with you, so I'm doing the blog entries from Barcelona poco a poco.

Overdose

It is staring at me. The little packet. Red design. Brown-red content. Asking me to open it. Enjoy it. I know I would have done it in the past. Enjoyed the content. Felt a piece of my country. But it's been in the fridge for three weeks now. Not opened. Untouched. What has happened? Did you lose your value after I found out I could buy you in Spain? Not so interested anymore now, Stine? I don't know. One thing I know, though, is that it seems as if I've had an overdose of the fantastic brown cheese (aka Gudbrandsdalsost).

Is this not a cultural place?

So it turns out that there are two Scandinavian concerts in Fuengirola/Mijas this week! I'm impressed. If you're in the mood for a combination of classical music and jazz, check out Drammen Symfoniorkester, and Royal Garden Jazz Band with Karin Krog and Laila Dalseth tomorrow night at Teatro de las Lagunas. On Friday, at the same theater, you can enjoy choir music presented by Copenhagen Girls' Choir. Who said this is not a cultural place?

"This is not a cultural place"

Wrong! This is definitely a cultural place! It just depends on what kind of culture you are interested in! (Before I moved to Costa del Sol, somebody who lives here said "this is not a cultural place, are you into sports?"... ) So it's safe to say that my expectations were quite low...

From April to October, each village arranges its own feria. For the most eager feria people, it's actually possible to go to ferias every weekend in this period. You may remember reading about me going to the San Pedro feria and the Mijas feria. In the weekend, my friend and I went to the feria in Fuengirola.
It was really fun, and quite different to the other ferias I've been to. According to a web page, "Fuengirola's Feria and Fiesta del Rosario is held from the 6th to the 12th of October and features displays by horses as well as bullfights, flamenco dancing and other popular Spanish cultural activities." There were horses everywhere, and as you can see on the pictures, the people wore their traditional Spanish costumes.


There were horses, the traditional feria tivoli, and of course lovely mojitos and some fantastic salsa bands and salsa Djs. We danced and had lots of fun!!

I definitely have to get a flamenco dress for next year's ferias!! :) There is just one feria left now: San Pedro, next week.

Music and hot chocolate

It's raining on Costa del Sol today. Heavy, heavy rain! (Well, right now the sun is actually shining. Weird...)

On a rainy day, what can be better than drinking hot chocolate with good friends, watching Grey's Anatomy (yes, I'm finally on Season 7 now!) and listening to music? (*Have also been to see a doctor friend in Marbella to pick up a prescription for my neighbour. THANK YOU, Doctor K.*) I love lazy Saturdays! And to be honest, it's sometimes nice to have bad weather down here. Other plans for this weekend include going to the feria in Fuengirola with my friend, and an intensive course in Spanish.

Right now I'm tidying up the apartment while listening to Lily Allen. Her CD "It's Not Me, It's You" totally takes me back to Oslo in 2008/2009 and life in that tiny tiny apartment at Etterstad. Do you also have memories attached to certain songs? Please feel free to share your connections in the comments section if you feel like doing it.

Talent

I have had the great pleasure of being audition "judge" together with the Music teacher and the Drama teacher at Aloha! In every lunch break the last two weeks we have listened to approximately 30 students auditioning for different roles in the musical "Oliver".

Here's my favourite song from Oliver right now; "I shalls scream". Click on this link from You Tube to hear the song. (It starts at appr. 01:50)

Tomorrow is the last audition, and we're beginning to get an idea of who we want to cast for the Aloha school production of "Oliver" in February 2011. I'm so glad I will be part of this production! The students have been excellent and we're impressed by their talent!

Clouds/Nubes/Skyer

I managed to catch the wonderful symphony of light created by the clouds, the sunset, the blue sky, and La Concha, before it suddenly got pitch dark here now. The pictures show the view from my little garden.

The view towards Istán

I like the way the blue sky mixes with the grey and pink clouds in the sunset

Ohooo... scary clouds surrounding La Concha

And here is my friend (and neighbour) Bianca's photo which must have been taken a tiny bit earlier. Still, it looks fantastic I think!

This was all from Stine, the photographer of Nature, tonight. Now back to work. Oh, it's great to be a teacher on Sunday nights...

To all my teacher friends in Norway: Ha en strålende høstferie!! Om tre uker er det min tur:)