(If you’re not a soccer fan, feel free to skip the next paragraph!)
Ok before I go any further I have to say that I’m still in somewhat of a euphoric state after Barca’s 5-0 thrashing of Real Madrid last night.. (A Spanish newspaper said: Los goles caen en el Camp Nou como las hojas en otoño... or "The goals fall in Camp Nou (the Barca Stadium) like leaves in autumn...") For those who watched the game, you can appreciate just how bad of a drubbing the blaugrana gave los blancos – as Mr. Kitchens famously said back in AP European History, “it was a beautiful thing.” Tic i taca – a nickname for Barca’s trademark possession-heavy attacking style – was in top form, and there were times when I wanted to cry over the elegant efficiency of FCB’s passing triangles, one-touches, and gorgeous through balls (esp. Messi’s assist on Villa’s 2nd goal – incredible). Xavi's first goal was also unreal.. Extended highlights here. It really showed the difference between a tight team with great chemistry that's played together for years and a store-bought team that has little experience gelling. Barca hasn’t lost in the last five Clásicos, and it’s particularly noteworthy that they kept up their recent dominance in a game that many (if not most) favored Madrid in… It was José Mourinho’s first loss ever (he'd been unbeaten in 19 games!) as the Madrid coach, and payback for his former days as Inter's coach, when he knocked Barca out of the semis last year en route to the Champions League title. Ok, sorry to all the non-soccer fans, I’ll stop talking about the game now!
A short video of the post-game celebration going on at Las Ramblas, the heart of Barcelona..
(Resume reading from here on..)
We’ve hit up the fútbol part of the title, but – you may be wondering – what on earth are setas?? Well, they're actually literally ON the earth. I’ll give you some hints.. they're part of a family of organisms that: can be several tons in size, are important in gastronomy because we eat their reproductive organs, can eat/process dead things and by so doing help keep us alive, can kill you, and are found everywhere from forests to the dark recesses of the inner skin folds on your toe.. Give up? I’m talking, of course, about fungi. But more specifically, setas refers to mushrooms, or the reproductive parts of many fungi. This past weekend, my program went on a trip to Berga, a small city tucked in the foothills of the Pyrenees, right in the heart of prime mushroom-picking country.
Mushroom picking may sound weird to you, but it isn’t to Catalans.. Almost 2.5 million – or around 30% - of the roughly 7 million people in Catalunya go mushroom picking. Apparently it’s not only a neat way to pick your own food, but it’s also a widespread hobby because mushrooms are, for many people, a key way to connect with nature. From what I gather, mushrooms basically provide Catalans with an excuse to go wandering around hills, hiking trails, and streams that are pleasant in their own right.
Anyway, now that you have some background, our experience: I think it was the first time that most of us had gone shroom-hunting.. and it was actually kind of fun. We had a cool guide who taught us a lot.. About how mushrooms were originally used for their hallucinogenic properties and only later eaten, how only ~5 species of mushrooms are deadly, how many mushrooms release tiny seeds that disperse via air to make baby mushrooms (often asexually) all over the place.. and he even convinced me to rub a dusty, puke-colored fungal specimen on a cut I had on my knee. I don’t know how much it helped me heal, but at least I haven’t lost my leg yet! After seeing the mushrooms, we also got to visit a super-cool donkey farm/reserve for the endangered Catalan donkey. It was a really interesting, off-the-beaten path kind of excursion. Just being in the fresh (though smelly) country air was a great change from city life. And the farm had the cutest cats and dogs - the cat below, in particular, was adorable.
Catalan Donkeys!
The weekly collection of other odds & ends:
(1) I saw the new Harry Potter movie a few days ago, and really liked it – the scenery changes were cool, the plot moved along at a great pace, and Dobby the house-elf is boss. However, for the first time in my life, the movie projector stopped working in the middle of the show – twice! Only in Spain… (and no free snacks or movie tickets to compensate either!).
(2) In an attempt to celebrate the American tradition of a Thanksgiving Day pick-up football game (American version), I went to the huge Walmart-esque supermarket near where I lived to try to buy a cheap ball. When I asked where I could find a pelota para fútbol americano, the lady laughed at me and said that the enormous, two-level store didn’t sell them…
(3) Aaand finally, many Spaniards, including my Biostats professor, ask me why I'm not cold when they see me in shorts & a t-shirt in November (in my defense, it's almost always above 40 F).. Today the prof. asked me if I was the only one in the whole campus to be wearing pantalones cortos, and I told him that I thought I was the only one in the whole city to be so aptly dressed.
That's all for now; thanks for tuning in – only three weeks left..waaaa!
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