Aventura 23: Monasterio de Poblet

Last week we ventured an hour and a half in bus south to Tarragona, through the city, las afueras, el campo (country), and even the mountains to arrive at a small town with a monastery, el Monasterio de Poblet.  This romanesque (but part gothic) monastery is I believe one of the oldest in Barcelona, and it was beautiful, beautifully simple but with so many secrets.  We had a walking library guide - can you guess who it is by that description? Yup.  My art history professor! He came along with us, and seeing as he seems to know everyone, he just walked right in and asked for the keys TO the monastery, and we had ourselves a the key to all parts of the monastery, and all the history and secrets.  

We learned that St. Bernardo, who was a great patron saint of the monastery, was one of the first to change the relationship between a man and a woman, from a hierarchical relationship to one of love and respect.  He loved Mary, and his poetry, his words, changed the way people viewed love.  

We found this padlocked door, where the padlock is actually a dragon if you look closely enough, and do you know what it was guarding? BOOKS.  This was the vault of books, where the monks would come and ask the guard who was standing there to open the vault and lend them a book with gold pages or intricate prints to read on the bench, always within eyesight of the guard.  

I wandered through the strong arches, in awe of the simple yet still impressive, mouth-gaping architecture.  

At the same time I was in awe of the form of the arches, columns, and church, I was confused where this strength came from.  This monastery was so old, that many of the stone bricks that it was built with were crumbling and falling apart, in all areas.  Yet it still stays strong.  And I think that shows how, in anything in life, you need to depend on other people.  All this bricks aren't perfect, especially as they get older.  But the have become more connecting, the line separating the levels disappearing. Although some bricks are losing their energy, they are melting into others to stay strong.  Take that metaphor as you like, but I was thinking a lot more than just rotting bricks when I was staring at these walls.

And as we headed out, another dragon to lead the way.  Or help us out, literally.

But the fun surely wasn't over yet.  We got to eat calçots, which isn't as much a food, as it is an experience.  We stepped up to the table, tied our bibs around our necks as we say our professor do, and waited until the waiters placed these huge trays in front of us of strange looking vegetables and orange salsa. What were we to do? 

http://www.restaurantanna.es/Galeria/temporada.html

Do as our professor does, and grab a stem, remove the black part, dip it in sauce, lean back...........and dangle it into your mouth! Like you are playing the catch-a-fish game at the carnival! And sheesh I'm I gonna be good at that carnival game next time I go to the town fair - because these calçots were delicious and fun and silly and I ate so many!

http://www.european-schoolprojects.net/festivals/Spain/winter/images/calcots.jpg

After the rest of la comida (yup, 7, 9 calçots is not your lunch), we penguin-walked back onto the bus for a wonderful 1.5 hour siesta back to the university with dreams of the serene monastery mixing with the messy, messy incredible fun calçots.