qatarperegrine | Montserrat

Every city we've been to in Spain feels like a new country, but the difference between Andalucia and Catalunia is vast. The crowd is very different, too. In Andalucia the other tourists were mostly Spanish, some French, some East Asian, and overwhelmingly young. Here in Montserrat there are tons of Americans, particularly older Americans on bus tours. It's funny how that happens. Once Justin and I passed a resort town in Turkey that was ALL Russian tourists.

Montserrat is a monastery set among a range of weird, Dali-looking rock pillars near Barcelona. (Though of course it's Dali that resembles Montserrat.) Montserrat is known for its black madonna, La Moreneta, who is the patron of Catalunia. We are gradually learning a little Catalan, which seems closer to French than Castillian Spanish; for example, "please" is "si us plau." Today we finally figured out (meaning that Ryan corralled our amused funicular driver into teaching us some Catalan) that x is sh (thus "coche" in Catalan is written "cotxe") but we still haven't totally worked out the dot between l's, as in our hotel, Cel.les Abat Marcel. I think it's to show it's not a double l pronounced y, but then why not write it Celes?

Oh, Montserrat is also known for its choir; it has, apparently, the oldest boys choir school in Europe. Last night we went to vespers, where the boys' choir sang Salwe Regina (the one I remember from Justin and Amanda's music history class, no less). Oh, and there's also a rather stunning museum.

We intended to do some hiking up here -- it was our consolation for not making it to the Picos de Europa as planned -- but since my ankles were alarmingly swollen we've just been taking it easy. Turns out that's also a good choice. We're all rested and ready to hit Barcelona tomorrow! Modernisme, here we come!