April 2002 Archives

Today is a special day. Not only because Barcelona is playing against Madrid, but also because today is Sant Jordi (you know, they guy who killed the dragon).
In Catalunya this day is celebrated by giving eachother presents. The boys give a rose to the girls, and in return they receive a book. For me this looks like a good deal, since the average book costs four times the price of a rose. So after work I went to town to buy a rose. This was not very difficult, since there were roses for sale on almost every corner and at every traffic light. Also books were available in plenty; Maria José bought a book of Alberto Vasquez for me.

On the news they showed the numbers of this day of books and roses (besides lot's of pictures of books and roses. Today the Catalan people bought 5,5 milion roses (there are 6 milion Catalans!) and 10% of the yearly volume of books was sold today!!!! Very impressive...

Sunday I wanted to write about the calçots. But after the calçots, I was too tired to write. And the days after I was luckily enough to have to work out of town, so I missed my 30 minutes of internet before lunch.

Anyway, three days ago was the day we had calçots; after all, it is the season for calçots. The week before we (or better MJ) was arranging all the things and inviting our friends. The Saturday afternoon we spent cleaning the garrage, so we could put there some big tables to eat on. When everybody arrived on Sunday, we first drunk a vermouth with some chips, mussels, olives, cheese...

Then the father of MJ arrived with the calçots. Calçot is family of the onion (I think it is leek / prei in Dutch), and over here prepared in a fire, so they are all black. You remove the black part, put the calçot through some special sauce and eat it like the Dutch eat herring. Delicious!

After the calçots we put some meat on the fire, and we finished with a big pie. To finish the activity good, MJ's sister Cristine and her boyfriend Pere told us that they had bought an appartment here in Alpicat.

Easter time is always a good period to have a short vacation. Usually the weather is getting better, and after the first busy months of the year, I really need a break.

This year was no exception, especially with the work we have for our new house. Therefore we decided to book a flight and rest. We didn�t have to think long for our destination; we were looking for a beautiful country with nice weather and nice people. Yes, Holland!
With a little bit of phoning (only one call!) we found a nice hostel which fitted our needs perfectly: Hotel Sangers in Harmelen. It's really cheap and has big comfortable rooms which look just like somebody has been living there until not so long ago. A perfect place to relax some days.

On Friday night I explored the local night life. There is an amazingly big offer of activities in Harmelen. I decided to have a sportive evening, and went to watch the Crespon darts tournament, organised by Darts club Pirates. Saturday after we woke up (quite late of course) we went shopping. First to the supermarket to buy all thing we cannot buy in Lleida like dropjes (zacht zoet), tijgernootjes, sup-a-soup tomato and cheese. Then we went to Utrecht to look for things for our house. We found a couple from Spain doing the same thing, but unbelievable for us they decided to buy paper serviets!!! Like we don�t have paper serviets over here!!!!

What can Catalan tourists do on an average Easter day? Since the shops were closed, we decided to go for sime sight seeing. Our target was the river "Lek" and the city Culemborg. After getting the so-called fresh nose, we headed to Haarzuilens for a typical Easter custom: palmpasen. I can assure that the Palm beer tasted really good! That evening we enjoyed another typical Dutch custom: gourmetten. And we were not the only ones leaving palmpasen for this wonderfull experience. In short: gourmetten is a way to invite friends for dinner without actually having to cook! No wonder it's popular in Holland... Of course we have bought a set for gourmet. After all, we want our Dutch visiters to feel at home when they come to Lleida.