Misericordia

    In 1592 Reus was menaced by the plague and, medical science being what it was in those days, there seemed no way to stop it.
    On Sept. 25th of that year, however, a young shepherdess was tending her flock when a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared to her. In that vision, Mary told the young woman to tell the town's elders that they should burn an ancient candle before the tabernacle and pray. If they did so, Mary said, the plague would pass.
    The shepherdess did as she was told and went into the city to speak with the elders. They, of course, did not believe her. Like Thomas, they demanded proof and, seeing none, they told Isabel Besora to go back to her sheep and quit bothering them.
    She did and the plague continued to rampage through the city.
    When Isabel returned to her flock, however, she did not waste her time fuming over her ill treatment but, instead, fell to her knees and prayed for her city's deliverance. The Virgin Mary appeared to her yet again and this time bestowed a kiss on the girl's cheek that left a mark resembling the city's ancient symbol, a rose. Armed with that proof, Isabel returned to the city's elders, showed them her evidence and this time they did exactly as she told them they should.
    The plague passed and every year since then Reus has celebrated Isabel's life and the miracle that ended the plague with a festival. The festival lasts for a week and features a lot of dancing, music, carnivals, family gatherings, special Masses, a Rosary procession to the Church of the Misericordia and even fireworks. It is one of two major festivals celebrated in the city.
   

The festival features many kinds of music, from drum-and-bugle corps...

...to small bands performing in traditional dress.

The drum-and-bugle corps perform at special church functions such as the Mass celebrating the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Isabel Besora in 1592 while the small bands perform impromptu concerts all over the city.

   

Moriarty is real...

    Josep is 13 and fully digitized.

    I'm 66 and I write letters with a fountain pen.

    He has more than 1,800 followers on Tumblr.

    I'm not even sure what that is.

    He likes bands with names like Bring Me the Horizon, Black Veil Brides and Of Mice and Men.

    I'm still listening to the Rolling Stones, Dylan, Baez, The Supremes, The Temptations, Billy Joel and a bunch of other singers and groups he knows nothing about. (I recently ordered The Dave Clark Five's greatest hits from Amazon, for example, and he asked me if Dave Clark was the old guy that used to do the New Year's Eve thing from Times Square. I'm really glad all over that he made me feel sooooo old with that question...)

    He's been known to lie on the couch for days on end, complaining that he's bored while doing something complicated with his fingers on the keyboard of his phone.

    I don't even have a phone and the best part of my day is my daily walk around the city, exploring new neighborhoods.

    I like sports.

    He doesn't.

    He makes GIFs.

    Again... no clue.

    Okay, you get it, we don't have a whole lot in common.

    But there is this one thing...

    Sherlock.

    I've been a Sherlock Holmes fan since I first read "The Speckled Band" back in grade school. I like Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson. I like Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as Holmes and Watson, and Basil and Nigel and Jeremy Brett... like I said, I'm a fan.

    And because I am I especially like the BBC's "Sherlock."

    So, it turns out, does Josep.

    Amazing.

    And since I have both Seasons One and Two on DVD (I know, you were probably thinking I had them on VHS but, no, I've got a grip - well, actually a fingernail - on the 21st Century and its technology... though there is no way I'm falling for the whole Blu-ray scam. I mean, who wants to count the number of pores on an actor's face?)

    Where was I?

    Oh yeah, and since I have both the first and second seasons on DVD we decided to have a Sherlock marathon complete with popcorn, barbecue potato chips, hot dogs (mustard for me, ketchup for him), shrimp (with cocktail sauce, of course, since we are marginally civilized even though we're males) and ice-cold orange soda (or pop, depending upon where you're from.)

    It was great. We discussed plot points, motivations, Watson's character, Mrs. Hudson's late (but not lamented) husband and just how it is that Sherlock could have survived a multi-story fall from the roof of a tall building at the end of the second season.

    Of course, once his mom (the doctor) reads this we'll be in for a lecture on proper nutrition and the evils of staying up all night to watch television but it was worth it...

    Totally.

    And if you're also a fan, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

    

    

Guten what?

    Apparently, I no longer look Russian... at least to some bankers.
    Apparently, I look German.
    Some background: I was standing in a long line at the bank where I'd gone to pay for Josep's school books (in Spain students have to buy their textbooks.) When it was finally my turn I stepped up and the man behind the counter looked at me, smiled and said, "Guten Tag."
    Without thinking I replied, "Guten Tag."
    He smiled again and quickly launched into a story that had something to do with Bavaria (the only word I understood) and so I asked him if he spoke English.
    He frowned.
    "You are not German?" he asked.
    "No, American," I said.
    "You don't look American," he said.
    "I am," I said. "From Florida."
    He looked incredulous.
    "No," he said.
    "Yes," I replied.
    "You don't sound American," he said.
    I didn't know quite what to say about that so I said nothing, just sort of stood there with a stupefied look on my face.
    "I mean," he said, "you don't have an American accent. You speak standard English, as they taught us in school. Not like Americans."
    I am the product of an American public school and state college education and, though I've traveled a lot, I lived in the United States for nearly 66 years before moving here in May. Because of that, I wasn't sure what he meant.
    "Are you British?" he asked. "Do you just live in Florida?"
    "No, I'm American, born and raised," I said. "Honestly."
    He shook his head again as if resigned to play along in a game that he didn't quite understand.
    "Okay, what can I do?" he asked.
    I explained that I was there to pay for Josep's books by depositing money into his school's account whereupon I would get a receipt that we could later turn in to actually get his books.
    "Which school does your son attend?" he asked.
    "Well," I said, "he's not my son but his mother is working in New Zealand until the end of the month and so..."
    He stopped me.
    "So, you are buying books in Spain for someone who is not your son and whose mother is in New Zealand and you're an American..." he said. "From Florida."
    Okay, so I admit, when put like that it did sound a little weird somehow.
    I nodded.
    He looked at me then turned to a colleague and said something in rapid-fire Catalan.
    His colleague shrugged and said something that corresponded to, "just take the money and give him his receipt."
    He sighed.
    "Which school?" he asked.
    I told him.
    "That's 280 Euros," he said.
    I handed him 300 Euros.
    He sighed, took the money, gave me 20 Euros in change and then rapidly filled out a form in triplicate. He stamped it, gave me one, filed one for the bank and filed the other for the school.
    "Anything else I can do for you?" he asked.
    "No, thank you," I said and turned to leave.
    "You're American? For real?" he asked.
    "For real," I said and went out, across the street and into the one Dunkin Donuts shop in Reus.
    "Classico xoxo, una grande cafe con leche, sisplau," I said.
    (Roughly, that means a chocolate-covered donut and a big coffee with milk please.)
    The woman behind the counter smiled and said, in English, "anything else?"
    I smiled back.
    "No," I said, "that's all I need right now."
   
   
   

The National Day of Catalunya

    Catalunya has a long, complicated and often bloody history stretching back to the days when the Romans first conquered this part of Spain.
    In the intervening centuries, Catalunya was conquered by Visigoths, later by Muslims and then by Christians. It became an economic power in its own right under the Counts of Barcelona, starting with Wilfred the Hairy and including Ramon Berenguer IV, whose marriage to Petronila of Aragon united Catalunya and Aragon into a single powerful kingdom. Barcelona became the launch point in those days for Aragon's expansionist designs that included the conquest of  the Kingdom of Valencia and the Balearic Islands. Those victories were followed later by the conquest of Sardinia, Sicily, Corsica, Naples and Athens.
    Trouble began following the reign of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille in the late 1400s. Their marriage is generally considered the foundation of a unified Spain, which began the slow erosion of what many Catalans consider their traditional right to determine their own destiny. They began rebelling against what they considered to be infringements on their liberties in the 1600s and, finally, during the War of the Spanish Succession, lost their independence on Sept. 11, 1714 with the conquest of Barcelona following a long siege. With the conquest of the city, the Habsburg dynasty was replaced by the Bourbons and the new king, feeling that he had been betrayed by Catalunya, terminated its right to have its own institutions and rights.
   Catalans have never really accepted that, however, and have been agitating for their own independence ever since, which kind of explains why Sept. 11 every year is the National Day of Catalunya. Celebrated around the world by Catalans, in Reus it means a parade, speeches and music. The festivities start early in the morning and go well into the night.

These three girls climbed a telephone pole to get a better view of the festivities. The brown shirts two of the girls are wearing indicate they are members of an organization that builds human castles on special occasions.

Reus is famous for its "giants," who make an appearance at major festivals. It takes a strong man or woman to walk around for hours wearing these huge costumes.

"The Queen" is one of the most popular giants.

Everyone - including the statue of Reus native son Gen. Prim - gets into the spirit on the National Day of Catalunya.

Some people carried flags, others wore t-shirts and still others wore capes. The traditional Catalunyan flag is yellow with four red stripes. The new  "independence flag" also features a blue triangle with a white star.

People began gathering for the festivities early in the morning.

In addition to the big giants (sounds strange to say that) Reus also has "little" giants.

Taking a break for lunch and a little flirting.

As the parade was about to start people hurried to find a place to see it.

Some people painted their faces with the new independence flag.

What's a parade without drummers?

A major part of the festivities is the traditional holding of hands for 22 minutes... when that time has passed people begin gathering for the speeches.

In addition to big and little giants, there is also the bull...

Russians, the farm and assorted stuff...

   So I'm sitting in the Placa Prim having a coffee when a man walks up and asks me if I can help him with some translation.
    Since my Catalan is sketchy (I start taking lessons Oct. 5) I told him that I might not be able to do that because I don't speak the language very well.
    No, he said, I must have misunderstood. He didn't want me to translate Catalan to English or English to Catalan, he said. He was able to handle that on his own.
    What then, I asked.
    "Well, they are Russian, you are Russian..."
    Russian?
    "What makes you think I'm Russian?" I asked, sincerely puzzled. (I was wearing a polo shirt with a Stonehenge logo on it that I'd picked up in England long ago and carrying a bright yellow-and-black backpack with a Nike logo on it so I figured it wasn't my clothes that made him think that.)
    The man shrugged.
    "Well," he said as he turned to leave, "you look Russian."
    Really?
    My family's DNA is primarily English and Irish. Because I'm an American there are some other strands woven into it, of course, but to the best of my knowledge there is no Russian genetic material in the mix.
    What's weirder still, on three more occasions in the past few days I've been mistaken for a Russian. Yesterday, for example, the waiter at a small restaurant I stopped at for coffee and a snack handed me a menu printed in Russian. (It's not unusual for restaurants and hotels here to have menus and other printed material in Russian and Ukrainian since Reus caters to a lot tourists from those two places.) I gave it back to him and asked for one in Spanish or English. He shrugged and brought me one in English because, apparently, while I might look Russian I surely do not look Spanish.
    Curiouser and curiouser...
    While I've been slowly recovering from the long flight home from New Zealand - a recovery process that seems to be taking waaaay to long, by the way - I've been well and truly fed. We had a second big feast at el Mas a couple of days ago... another giant paella and assorted second and third courses followed by dessert. This time there were more than 20 people at the table, including Josep's cousin Elena who was bombarded with questions about New Zealand, all of which she answered gracefully. As usual, following dinner, there was a lot of conversation and even a card game that had many more rules than I could remember so I just watched. (Elena won it though I'm not quite sure how...)
    While his mom is still in New Zealand working through the end of the month, Josep and I have been getting ready for the start of the school year. We're almost ready but we still need to buy his books for the new year... they've been ordered but won't come in for another couple of days at which point we have to go to a bank, deposit money into the school's account and get a receipt that we will then take to a bookstore where they'll turn them over to us...very complicated.
    He has an orientation day Friday and school officially starts next Monday. He's 13 so naturally he doesn't want to go back to the classroom... I'm 66 and can sympathize. I remember all too well what it was like during that last precious week of summer vacation when I was his age... my friends and I tried to cram every activity we could into those last few days. We played ball in the mornings, we went to the beach every afternoon and stayed out half the night until our moms threatened us with both physical and psychological violence if we didn't come in.
    This is a new generation, however. Josep and his friends seldom go outside. Instead, they've been spending this last week in a state of high anxiety texting one another about what clothes and sneakers are cool this year, whether their cellphones are out of style and need to be replaced with something newer and cooler, the newest game apps - apparently if you don't have them you aren't cool - and more stuff like that. Frankly, since I was never one of the cool kids when I was his age, I can't really relate to what they're so anxious about. In fact, it's a mystery to me why they aren't at the beach every day because the weather has been beautiful, the Mediterranean's waters are still warm and instead of texting one another they could be actually talking face to face. When I mention that to Josep, however, he sighs and then gives me the same tolerant, semi-amused look young folks always give old folks who simply do not understand what life is all about in these modern times.
    Sometimes I feel so out of the loop... kinda like those Russians who were once sent to Siberia...
   

Home again, home again...

    Despite being crammed into tiny airplane seats for long periods of time, we made it all the way from Wellington back to Barcelona. It was a long series of connecting flights first to Sydney and from there to Singapore and London before we arrived in Barcelona where Elena's brother Luis picked us up.
    There was a certain amount of weirdness along the way: For example, we had an eight-hour layover in Sydney and Josep's cousin Elena suggested we use that time to do a little sight-seeing. She especially wanted to see the famous Sydney Opera House. Sadly, that was not to be. The Australians, apparently afraid that we'd spend too much money buying souvenirs and lunch, refused to let us leave the airport without a visa.
    More weirdness: Our luggage was screened in Wellington, then again in Sydney, then again in Singapore and once more in London. What made that weird, first of all, was the fact that there was no possibility that we could have picked up any contraband walking from the airplane to security. I raised that point with a couple different security types and all they could do was shrug their shoulders and paw through my luggage. My best guess: This is a way to put a lot of otherwise unemployed people to work while making it appear as though assorted governments are taking the "war on terror" seriously. Why do I think that? Well, after having our luggage screened in Sydney and other other stops along the way we were left to wander all over the various international terminals where we could have come into contact with any number of nefarious ne'er-do-wells before we, once again, boarded the plane. Yeah, you guessed it, our luggage wasn't screened before we boarded...
    I could go on but there's no point: Anyone who has flown anywhere in the last dozen years or so knows that it's hardly worth the effort and certainly not worth the money.
    I loved being in New Zealand even though we went through our share of storms and earthquakes but it did feel wonderful to come back to Reus Saturday afternoon; especially since Elena's mom and a dozen of her relatives gave us a really warm welcome - complete with a paella - once we arrived. Jet lag caught up with me after my second helping and a glass of wine so I took what I thought was going to be a two-hour nap: Can you say coma? That "nap" lasted 12 hours... jeez, this getting old thing is wearying.
    We spent Sunday afternoon at El Mas, a farm just outside Reus that has been in the family for generations, for a combined welcome home-Sunday dinner-birthday party. There was a three-course meal, a birthday cake and that was followed by dessert. Oh my, whatever weight I might have lost in Middle Earth I gained back during that feast. (I'm not complaining... the food was great and the conversation afterward was just as rich. A lot of travel stories got told, including one involving one of Elena's aunts who apparently tried, once, to ride a camel in Morocco.) It was wonderful to sit beneath a 200-year-old tree listening to stories told by one of Elena's sisters, her aunts, a cousin or two, her mom and others. My Catalan is sketchy at best (I'm signing up for classes Monday) but just sitting back on a beautiful late-summer afternoon and letting the conversation wash over me was enough to wipe out all the negative effects of that long flight home.

A welcome-home paella courtesy of Elena's mom.

Sunday at El Mas, while some folks were cooking others were sampling a few appetizers.

The birthday cake.

A birthday toast.