st. miquel del fai

outside the monastery of st. miquel del fai

the weather has been beautiful the last three days (apart from some cloudy spells). after church on sunday, some 9 of us drove up to lleida to see the nature reserve/park of st. miquel del fai. the weather was especially nice there-partly sunny, a nice breeze, nice temperature. st. miquel's is an awesome place...or shall i say it was churro ("gorgeous")? i'm not so sure about the history of it all, but i think that the monastery that's there dates back to the 9th century a.d.. in the 16th century, it was fixed up with roman and gothic architecture. afterwards, i believe it was occupied by nuns for a few centuries. there is also a house (now a church) where a hermit lady lived; a castle down in the gorge; a distillery (!!); a "lake of the nuns"; and many waterfalls and caves. do forgive my weak history of the place...we sort of just wandered about looking at things and taking pictures (not to mention mr. google is failing me right now and i can't find any history of it online). 

the monastery is in behind the buildings in the center 

taken from just outside the monastery

behind one of the waterfalls!

i didn't take any pictures of the actual monastery, but it is near those buildings in the center of the top picture. if you delve back towards the rocky mountainside, the rock splits open and the monastery is built in the crevice. inside were rows of pews and a few little displays set up near/in the walls. the one i looked at was a stone tablet with a latin (?) inscription. st. miquel's is only open on sundays and holidays (of which spain has many), so i have a feeling that the monastery is still in use. there is also a restaurant there and another big building, where you can have weddings and receptions. by the end of the day, i almost felt like getting married up behind a waterfall, looking out over the mountains.

the castle was way down in the gorge, by the river. it looked like it was just the castle and no walk-in setup, but maybe you could have climbed into it and explored. at any rate, we didn't go down there. all of the caves were closed but one, so we trekked down the mountain side to have a look. it was somewhat small, but it had some really cool formations and pools of water.

the lake of the nuns was pretty funny...it was more like a puddle in the crevice of some rocks. you could crawl in there though, and there were tons of fish! the ones i saw were about 5 inches long. i bet there were bigger, grosser, older fish towards the dark corners of the crevice. can't you just pictures a couple of nuns in there, with a net and bucket, trying to catch some fish? those nuns must have had fun, in yon mountains of lleida, in the fair land of cataluña.

"you grab the line, i'll grab the pole! we'll go down to the fish-fish hole, honey, baby, mine!" 

in town

after having our fill of st. miquel, we piled back into cars and went to a town about thirty minutes away. i have no idea what town it was, but it was really gorgeous! we walked through some adorable streets, until we came upon an old roman bathhouse. it was all glassed in so i didn't bother with pictures. the consistent temperature of the hot spring there is 75º C (167º F). as i was already hot, i just took the water's steam for it and forewent the testing. 

then we all sat down at a café and got some drinks. all of the others attend the church in barcelona, except for a visiting mother of one of the girls. we were quite the mix: there were a few people from the dominican republic, one from puerto rico, one from ecuador, one or two from spain, one from france, and one from america. thankfully one of the spanish ones had a castilian accent, so i was able to hear that a bit (my family is from colombia, so they don't have the spanish athento). it was also great to hear the french guy speak spanish with his french accent. when he laughed in french, it reminded me of my brother josh. we have this thing where we laugh in french when we are feeling particularly sophisticated. or goofy. 

afterwards, i got a ride home with a guy who is trying to learn english. he knows the grammar and vocabulary well, but he needs to work on pronunciation. he's hoping to practice up so that next time he can try to speak in english. all this is making me think thrice about my accent. what accent do i have, for the nth time? what is the best american accent to learn? (i said californian, by the way. then i changed it to ohio/indiana/blahland 10 minutes later). am i pronouncing and enunciating my english words well enough for spanish speaking, english yearning people to duplicate? not that it matters...i'm hardly the english teacher. 

(side note: i can't wait to learn french)