Hellooo February!
Yesterday, after waking up around 1PM, Toni & I decided to spend a few hours at Montserrat before I had to babysit. His mom, who has been there many times, suggested otherwise...... going at 9AM. So this morning I woke up at 730 and left at 8 to go spend the morning at Montserrat.
Montserrat is a mountain about 35 minutes outside of Barcelona, and I've wanted to go since this summer. It's been a sacred area since the 12th century when the Black Madonna was found there... it's a statue of the Virgen Mary holding baby Jesus, and they have black faces. She's the patron saint of Barcelona and very important to the Catalans.
On top of the mountain is a monastery where a bunch of monks live and pray for the world. There's also different religious points throughout the mountain that you can walk to, and a handful of hiking trails to spend the day on. (I sound like such a tour guide)
After months of pestering Toni... we finally made it there.
Beautiful blue day with no clouds in the sky... and freezing cold temperatures. I didn't expect it to be so cold... because I didn't use my brain to think about how this is a mountain. There was snow in some places.....
Of course, being fat people, we were starving and spent a small fortune on a small breakfast. I got the traditional cheese that can only be bought in this area... I forget what it's called... but it's like cottage cheese I guess. I've never had cottage cheese. But I added honey to it, and the tasteless blobs of cheese became sweet and delicious and Toni reminisced about his childhood.
It almost looks like eggs and cheese in this picture... but it's not :P I even bought some cheese for tonight and tomorrow! And some honey to go with it :)
We started our freezing day by getting into the sun... Now.. Toni hardly ever curses (in English)... but today he was throwing out the F-bomb like it was candy at a parade... I kept reminding him (through my punches) that we were at a SACRED mountain... but he kept forgetting.
We headed to the church but we couldn't go in unless we wanted to hear the church services.. and since it was over an hour long in a different language I passed. We walked all around and he explained all the religious meanings of everything... he acts like he doesn't know a lot about these kind of things.. but he's a religious and Spanish history genious compared to me.
We stuck some coins in a bin and grabbed a red candle before heading over to the walk with a million candles all lit for personal, important reasons.
Toni read the prayers to me and we finally picked our candle's final resting place. Unfortunatly, I burned the sides of the red plastic and our candle looked quite black... but our ugly, deformed candle was still perfect for our prayers (that his mom made sure we remembered to say).
We still had some time to spare before checking out the church, so we went on quick walk that I can never say right so I know I won't type it right... but it's the walk that goes through the 12 stages of Jesus's death and resurrection. It was too quick - and next time we will go on a LONG walk, but it had a nice view of the monastery.
When it was finally time to go inside the church... we were greeted by the scent of incense and a surprisingly small group of people. I've read that when it's busy you have to wait in line for everything, and we had basically no lines. But it was beautiful. Stained glass, incense holders every 2 feet, it seemed magical.
We went through the small rooms with a breeze that I'm sure have had long lines twisting through them, walked under the Arc of Angels, up the Stairway of Saints, and went right to her....
THE BLACK MADONNNAAA!!!
In all her splendid glory. I read that she was found in that exact place and the monks weren't able to move here so they built the santuary around her... I don't know about that... but she really had a lot of decorations around her. And her ball (that represents the universe) is meant to be touched or kissed... but I didn't believe Toni so I didn't do it... but it's true.
After walking through the backways of the church, we reentered and got our seats for the boys choir.
This choir is the oldest boy's choir in Europe... having been around since the 13th Century, and it's become one of the most famous and renound choirs in Europe. I did some research on them, and the ages range from 10-14 and the boys live on the mountain during this time. I swear when they started singing I almost cried... it was so light and singular and so beautiful.. made me miss being in choir!
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