Blogs from Sitges, Catalonia, Spain, Europe
February 22nd 2012
Bona Tarde everyone!! Sorry for the delay, my week was slow until Carnaval and I wanted to steal people's pictures to post!! Carnaval is a 5 day long festival fit with costumes, pride and confidence for all that celebrate it. The reason Carnaval falls on this week is (to be blunt) to get all your sins out and over before Ash Wednesday. On Thursday, the first night of craziness, the "King" arrives into town and there is a parade in his honor. There were also parades other nights, full of groups in theme outfits shakin' what their madres gave them! The parade is so energetic and full of color, lights, glitter and all kinds of people coming together. It looks a lot like people dressed up for halloween watching the Macy Day Parade, but only the ... read more
January 15th 2012
Hola! First off, I would like to apologize for the lack of blogging. the past 2 days there has been no internet at all in the entire hotel, and i haven´t been able to get on once! also, i am going to apologize in advance for the lack of capitalization and punctuation that i am going to use. This is a spanish keyboard and the shift key is way off and i dont feel like spending an extra 30 minutes typing this trying to find the shift every time. moving on... the night at the ice bar was so much fun. it was awesome! the entire bar was made of ice. the stools, couches, bar, cups. everything! i had a blast! they give you big silver puffy coats and gloves, it was for sure worth the ... read more
December 4th 2011
Bueno! Here I am, 2 years after starting my last blogging excursions in Panama, starting anew on another continent! After graduationg and spending some seriously quality time loving life in Montreal I decided to take a deep breath to reflect on where my head is at- to think about my degree and exactly what and where I want to study next, meet some new people, work on my languages, and get around the world a little bit while the getting's good. So welcome to my musings around Europe! I'm based out of Sitges, Spain, in the very distinct province of Catalonia. It's a gorgoues, tiny beach town very near Barcelona, separated by a mountain and a 20-min train ride through some winding tunnels on the mediterranean coast. I'm living with a buslting and generous Catalonian family ... read more
July 15th 2011
Sorry I didn't post yesterday, guys. I have had a pretty busy few days since my dad and his girlfriend Song arrived in Sitges for my birthday. Let's start this post from what happened 2 days ago. It was my birthday. Funny. This is the 13th episode on and my birthday is the 13th. I spent the first whole half of the day preparing for the party. My mom and I went into Sant Pere de Ribes to pick up the cocus (I don't know if I spelled that right) which is basically just Spanish Pizza that kids have at their birthday parties. Then at 2:00, Kirana, a friend of Shawn, brought her son Noah and my other friend Leo (sushiman). Leo, Noah and I played with the frisbee outside, and then we played a game ... read more
July 7th 2011
It's war, war! WAR!!!!! When I arrived at my fourth day of Esplai sailing camp, we were preparing for WAR!!! Two of the instructors participated in this activity. They split the kids into two groups. My group went with the instructor named Pablo, and the other instructor (I don't remember her name), took the other group of kids. Each group made a banner, and the instructors hoisted them onto the mast of the sailboats. Then we had lunch, preparing for the grand war. This is how the game (war) worked. Everybody put t-shirts over their live-vests. One person in each group was elected to be the 'king'. Each group would get in a sailboat and toss water in water-bottles at the people on the other boat. The boats would fight each other on the waters near ... read more
July 6th 2011
From now on I am not going to post everyday, only on days when I do something interesting. Last night and today were certainly 'interesting', but I can't say today was all that great. Still, I guess that's just part of traveling. So yesterday, my mom finally connected with Merce and Peter, friends of Shawn. Their 13-year-old daughter, Zoa, is traveling in california with Shawn and Pere, and their kids. They have 2 other kids named Leo and Kai; Leo is about my age, and Kai is 6 years old. Yesterday, I went down to the beach to meet Leo and Kai, and had a blast. Leo knows about as much English as I know Spanish. And he is just as interested in practicing his English as I am in practicing my Spanish. So I would ... read more
July 5th 2011
Yesterday evening, after I wrote my previous blog post, my mom and I had a spanish lesson with Bibiana, a friend of Shawn. After that, my mom, Teja, and I had dinner and went to bed. Today was the second day of the Esplai beach activity camp. The first thing we did at the camp today was kayaking. I was in a Kayak with 2 other kids and a camp instructor. We had a lot of fun on the Kayaks, and there were countless water-fights. After our Kayak got back to the port, we had lunch. Then, we went to the beach. We swam, played football (soccer), and did body surfing. Everybody had a blast. Literally, people were blasting each other with water. Then we went back to the port. The camp instructors split the kids ... read more
July 4th 2011
Once again, sorry I didn't post yesterday. The reason was that, well, there was not much to post about. I just hung out all day and later went down to the beach to do some body surfing. Today was more interesting. It was my first day of the spanish immersion camp my mom had set up for me. It was a fun 'beach activity camp'. Most of the kids in it were Spanish and the instruction was all in Spanish. I got to practice my spanish with other kids and have fun on the beach. Here are a few of the things I did at this camp. First we played a 'name game' to get to know each other's names. We used this colorful parachute in the game, but I don't need to get into the ... read more
July 1st 2011
Okay, I will start this blog with where we left off last time. Yesterday was probably the most exciting day yet. Basically, nothing happened until around 5:30. I spent my day at home, read my book, did yoga with my mom, and relaxed. At around 5:30, one of the yoga teachers from a yoga studio around here came to pick my mom and I up. Her name was Kirana, and she and her kid Noah were going to a festival called 'la fiesta de espuma' which meant 'the foam party'. It was in a town called Sant Pere de Ribes. Kirana, her kid, my mom, and I went to this festival, and it was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. Now, I was expecting a bunch of bubbles floating around, but that ... read more
