Mary, best Sitges tour guide you can get

As Mary and I were walking south on a breathtakingly beautiful boardwalk from her apartment to the town of Sitges, we got to talking about movies we loved and I mentioned The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which is much less dramatic than the trailer, should you decide to watch it. The premise is that Harold intends to post a letter but keeps putting off doing so by going to the next closest postbox, something relatable, as in my earlier days in a new place, I'd go for a run and never quite be able to turn back, always going one more block. It's no longer running on these jagged feet, but like Harold Fry, the same feeling of the world being an open book still applies and I'll often take advantage. 

But this time, the opposite was true; instead of driving straight from Aix to Sitges, the town of Girona, on the Spanish/French border called my name and asked me to stop. Supposedly a university town, though there was scant evidence, it is dissected by the Onyar River, separating the very medieval section from one that is maybe more belle époque. At this point having been to a fair amount of medieval hill villages, I thought I had had my fill, but found this one compelling, perhaps it had a Spanish flair. Or perhaps because it was the beginning of November and there were few tourists (those who were there seemed to be Dutch, interestingly). When walking around the old town, a profound feeling came over me of feeling the spirits of people from other eras, it was almost as though I was in another time. But perhaps it was because the streets are narrow and clean and in many areas, show little sign of the 21st century.

This was mostly the vibe, stonewise and century-wise

Cloister at the cathedral. The work of Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, even JS Bach, wasn't appreciated  while they were alive, which has always struck me as unfair, though they hopefully found pride in creating what was important to them. When walking through the cloister above, I imagined the stone cutters who created the floor "tiles" seeing people walking over their hard work, and wondered if that was upsetting, then wondered what their reaction would be if they knew their work would still be around 850 years later. Was there even a concept of 850 years ago or ahead at that time? .  

Stairs leading from the Cathedral, which has with the exception of St, Peter's the  largest vestry in the world.

A hilly city on its own, the Pyrenees were always lurking around in the background

It turns out that this isn't an argument between vegetarians about whether couscous or bulgur are better, to my surprise.

I watched this lady, with highly-stylized bedhead and a granny cart, leave her apartment building.  Hunched over, she exerted significant effort moving her caddy forward. As logistics would have made it impolite to pass her, I instead followed, enchanted when she parted the shiny glass doors of the bougiest pastry shop, where she deliberated for a long time, choosing a large concoction that appeared to be something like a cannoli with a huge glob of chocolate frosting on the outside. 

Ciao, ciao Girona. Why are there so many Xs in the Catalan language?

Back on the road, it was exciting to be in a car again (first time since August) and be able to drive wherever I wanted. Again I was diverted, this time unfortunately arriving on a pedestrian-only plaza in downtown Barcelona, with the only way out either driving over a bollard or down a very narrow one-way street the wrong way, spilling out onto a major thoroughfare. I chose the latter and got honked at, yelled at with hands in the air, and given the finger. Interestingly, I can confess here, when I started my journey at the rental agent in Aix, because of construction, I took a wrong turn, ending up in a similar unfortunate situation. Unlike the hostile drivers in Barcelona, Mr. Clean Cut Aix Man got out of his car, motioned for me to roll down my window and with a smile and an understanding and sympathetic face (helpless old lady, he probably thought), gave me directions on how to get out. When I made the SAME mistake AGAIN, so awkward, there he was with patient directions, correcting the mistake he'd seen me make. No global argument here for French people being ever so accommodating while Catalan are not, though I did see plenty of evidence of the latter. Not the warmest...

When in Antibes last month, I had bought Life with Picasso, which was a really good read and put me in mind of Picasso's art. So, I braved above mentioned hostility and outrage to stop in at his museum in Barcelona with the hope it would be a bit more expansive than Antibes. While I wouldn't call it an expansive collection (he did work for a long time and produced such variety), it was interesting in that there was a lot of his very early work, so seeing pretty straightforward landscapes and portraits was interesting, as was a more abstract painting he was trying to work out, with about 15 different versions. 

It was wonderful to be in a grown up city again, I hadn't realized how much I missed them. On a leg stretching exercise, I ended up at a park with many roads leading out of it, somewhat like Union Square but smaller. In the middle was a tent city, very tidy and organized, but it couldn't have been more cheek by jowl. Seeing the shiny Apple Store behind, it was impossible not to think about the disparity and what the residents of the tents must feel seeing all the consumers going in there and wondering how they can become members of that club. When I brought this up with a wise woman who knows a lot about refugee immigration, she said that that this is how immigration works, and is  how it has always worked. The first generation makes huge sacrifices, living uncomfortably, but it's a first step escaping whatever atrocities they'd been dealing with. I guess living in a tent seems less comfortable than what I would have imagined all those European immigrants who came to the US had to deal with. But it probably wasn't a party either.  

Sign at the tent city, Infrastructure for the people, not tourism.

ARemnants from another time still hanging on

And another

And another

Can someone please explain this to me? It was everywhere

I'm guessing the above two photos are of some famous building that I just happened to walk past. Gaudi or Gaudiesque

Staircase, the Picasso museum

Mary is a Boston friend, but has a daughter and grandson in Barcelona, so with her husband, spends some of each winter nearby in Sitges. Every year we have tried to get together, but finally made it happen last week. I eventually reached that final destination while rain was hammering down on her seaside town. But not to worry, it was sunny, and warm the next day, made all the more beautiful by the mid-term results. 

A woman of incredible discipline who has an exercise routine that makes me exhausted just thinking about it, Mary took the morning off to show me around, taking me down the boardwalk I mentioned at the start. Her place looks out over a beach and the Mediterranean, and so we followed a path to a beautifully restored and maintained town, much painted white, which produces beautiful light when combined with the reflection off the sea. When my stomach started growling, Mary indulged my non-Spanish need to eat around noon, and we sat at the end of a pier, essentially in the middle of the water, watching kids getting sailing lessons and adults riding jet skis.

In the afternoon, Mary took a swim in the sea and was in there long enough that I wondered whether she was headed to Barcelona. Sitges is a beautiful place, which is apparently known to be a gay party town, which we didn't experience. I'd go back there in a heartbeat.

Lunch spot. We talked for a day straight, all of it interesting

Downtown

Serious door

Edge of town from the boardwalk

Night night, Sitges

Despite loving this place, I had to leave on Thursday as it was some hours back, and Friday morning at 9am, some of us had an appointment with two lads who were going to take a bunch of us mushroom foraging. We met in a parking lot with six others and then drove about five minutes, north of Pertuis to Mirabeau, to a public forest. There, each of us was given a basket, a knife, and most importantly, a piece of paper that had photographs and names of the mushrooms that we could pick. We were told that we'd see predominantly Lactaire Delicieux Safrané, which we could identify by its saffron colored ring on the stem, or Lactaire Sanguine with a red ring. Most followed along with the pros in the woods, but some of us wanted to roam to see what we could find, after all I'd always been good at easter egg hunting. Early on, Jean-Marc had found a lactaire deliciuex safrané, which he put in my basket, so I had one to look at and compare. After studiously searching for about 20 minutes, I started to lose interest and began lopping off any old mushroom, especially if they were pretty. I was thinking about the photographic opportunities. As it turns out, it was a nice basket with enough poisonous fungi to would kill a T Rex. But so pretty. The forest was also beautiful on a sunny, cool afternoon after a rain, with shining diamonds on leaves, and so much lichen, an absolute joy to be in. At this point I'd totally lost interest in any sort of harvesting, but on my way back to meet everyone, found three Griset Tricholoma myomyces, each one with a head about the size of a quarter. Easy to see why mushrooms are 24 euros a kilo at the market, though those are probably farmed and more easily found!

After a few hours, we all met up and the lads, and they were such lads, lovely lads,  put out a nice spread of things they had produced; pastis, red, white and rose wine, grape juice, marinated black olives, green olive tapenade, boar paté, honey, bread and wild mushrooms marinated in red wine and their olive oil. We debriefed and were sent on our way, pooling all the mushrooms which worked out well for yours truly. 

Recipe for a slow and painful death. But oh so pretty.

Legit harvest

Post hunt spread

Across from the forest, where we enjoyed the spread

They were the best

I should have known, with a What's App group name of Move It Mondays, that it might be slightly different from the shaggy Tuesday hikes to which I've become accustomed. Invited to join months ago,  timing had never been right, so I decided to jump in the other day. The five women (apparently it's usually more like 10) arrived right on time at the appointed place, and soon, we were off, through La Torse, a park I know well and had wandered through the day prior when I had enjoyed  the variety of trees and the sole larch, which was turning a beautiful orange. But this time there was no opportunity for any kind of appreciation as we were apparently trying to beat the 6km they had done the prior week within the exactly 1.5 hour time allotted for this exercise situation. We rushed around, here or there, with some yelling and faux encouragement, not really seeing anything and at the end, circling round and round a little muddy area, which honestly made me dizzy but was apparently important because we had to do exactly the hour and a half, no less. You can take the girl out of America but you can't take the America out of the girl. As old Jilly would say, "Not my best". 

The leaves are still on the plane trees on Cours Mirabeau and I'm still wearing shorts to the gym, but the Christmas "chalets" are up and opening on Saturday, which is confusing to this New England brain who equates Christmas with cold and snow. Also, with December...

I'm happy to say that I have nothing going on for a few weeks and will only be doing minimal things as I try to collect myself, remind myself why I'm here and start to figure out how to best live an enriching life without the yan of work. I've always been good at the yin, but when there's no yan, it's something to revisit and recalibrate. 

Stay tuned and stay you.

Sole larch tree, Park La Torse