Salamanca,Spain,
March 7, 97

!Hola!

Catalunya is Catalan for Catalonia, one of the best know provinces of Spain and one of the three that's been fighting for independence for many years; the others are the Basque Country and Galicia. Using my notebook in Spain has been as easy as in Holland, since I can use regular electricity plugs and just have to put the phone plug into my modem.

Before I go on I want to make it clearer than in my first newsletter that I am the only one writing. The newsletters hold my opinion and observations plus some of what Keni and Misha tell me about their experiences. A "newsletter" is, for me, a letter of news; in this case a letter of news to my friends.

There are two main reasons why I haven't been writing more about the girls. A lot of what is going on is part of a long process and can only develop in time. Writing little is allowing more time besides - very important - keeping the girls privacy. The second main reason is that our communication and understanding of each other's role(s) has become increasingly difficult again. So instead of describing a lot of that, I simply skip it. In case that the trip turns around a whole lot, and the girls are very interested and self-motivated to participate in the newsletter, there'll be one or even more by two or all of us.

But let us return to "Catalunya". It was quite a happy feeling to see the first trees blossoming in Southern France when we passed through on February 23. This nice climate and high's in the 60's F/almost 20 C during the day stayed with us for the whole week in Spain's northwestern province.

Ester, a Spanish friend of mine from the college in Mannheim, Germany, was so generous to offer us her apartment in a well done apartment/single houses and residence complex 3 km outside of Tossa de Mar for free. Tossa itself is situated 90 km north of Barcelona on the Costa Brava.

We had decided to take our first real "weekend" with no tasks except nurturing ourselves and preparing our four day visit in Barcelona. Checking out the area in the next couple days gave me very mixed impressions. The rather big complex on a beautiful small bay has its own information office for people living there and a gate with a guardian during the summer time. 50 % of the people owning apartments or houses are Germans and there is no need to speak Spanish. The small town of Tossa at a bigger and even more beautiful bay is full of hotels, restaurants and bars. The huge supermarket where we did our shopping - one of a few - seemed deserted for it wasn't tourist season.

Pushing away the almost overwhelming feelings that were created by these observations, I started to discover the real beauty. A coastline of mainly steep cliffs rises and falls on forested mountains, that reach up to 1300 meters within a few kilometers inland. Tossa itself was first built on a hilly cape between the bay and another tiny one. The small and most beautiful old village is surrounded by medieval walls like a crown on a head.

4, 5 old fishermen were sewing their nets by hand next to their colorful small boats in the late morning hours. They seemed almost like a tourist attraction, but helped to give an impression of the villager's life before industrialization and later and harder tourism hit the place. Some cliffs were inviting for rock-climbing and I spent hours doing it besides long breaks to look at the Mediterranean Sea. Clear water with bluish and greenish colors kept me sitting there and I was soothed by the never ending play of the waves.

Pondering about several questions I also asked myself why humans are so drawn to the sea. Most of the newer buildings were trying to catch a view of it and I felt that I could only slightly touch the mystery with empathy, but not with the intellect. Lucky us that we are going to meet the Mediterranean Sea again in France and Italy and later on the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

The girls thoroughly enjoyed the complex's bay, the sun and the time off. We prepared simple meals for each other - pasta and potatoes, as usual - and read the International Herald Tribune to catch up with what's going on in the world. We could even watch a bit a TV, since there was a satellite dish on the balcony; sadly, there were only German station set up.

The woman of a German, retired couple, named Frau Kiehl, was so kind to offer to do our laundry. She turned out to be quite surprised when she saw us arriving with a huge heap. But she was too friendly to turn us down then and everything was more than fine when Keni gave her a certificate for two menus at a nearby restaurant that Keni and Misha had made themselves. Frau Kiehl had even hemmed a pair of pants and it was touching to see Keni and her beaming and hugging when we picked up the clean wears. I could only comment it to myself with "she is a Mom", meaning this with a lot of respect and admiration.

The only thing left to do was to talk about the visit in Barcelona. I had suggested to the girls that they could stay and be in Barcelona on their own. Especially Misha's strong desire to experience on their own had led me to that thought in Taize. Barcelona is, as I know out of my own experience and those shared by others or read about in the travel guide, not a very safe city. Especially around Las Ramblas, the old center of the city, is an area well known for thefting. Taking this risk seemed the best thing to do nevertheless. So we talked at some length about what to expect and how to protect.

Driving in Barcelona was an experience in itself. The traffic is heavy with tons of little motorbikes that shoot into any space given. The street signs are small and situated for pedestrians, not for driving. It turned out that I had to drive and navigate since my navigator's capacities didn't make it. But it was a nice way to see a bit of the city already and helped in orientating later on. After finally finding the tourist information to get a better and free map it was a piece of cake to find the hostel the girls had picked.

While they went in to book, two guys tried to steel stuff out of the car; while I was sitting in it! Then Misha and Keni returned having found the hostel too unfriendly and rough. The very useful "lonely planet guide to Western Europe" provided excellent information on pensions; little, family run hotels. So they booked by phone and checked it out without their baggage. After four hours in Barcelona I saw them disappear to stay just fifty meters off the main part of Las Ramblas.

We had exchanged our phone numbers, thought about possibly spending one evening together and had already set up a place and time for meeting four days later to do the long drive to Salamanca. Inwardly I was prepared for an extended stay in Barcelona in order to do the procedures following a possible thefting of values. This was enhanced seeing the differences between talking about protection and actually doing so in the process of finding the place to stay.

I was free to meet with my old friend Pilar. We had met in an international workcamp - doing volunteer work - in Germany seven summers ago. It turned out to be so great seeing her again and we spent the two evenings at her boyfriend Warren's place. He is in an American teaching English and the two of them usually communicate in German since they met studying in Germany. Pilar and I kept on talking in English since that was our common language back then. She is a journalist and fluent in Spanish, Catalan, French, English and German.

Warren's apartment, that he is sharing with a German student, was amazingly small and I was even more grateful for his offer to have all three of us stay there. Living 40 km south of Barcelona in a coastal town, the apartment is rented to tourists in the summer months for four times the regular price. Since he may stay there all year long he's got to pay double rent in those months "only". Especially Pilar gave me insides into the Spanish society that I could have never gained otherwise. Thank you very much again and hopefully it won't take that long until we meet again.

Visiting with my even longer time friend Ove and his wife Candida rounded up a colorful time. Ove is vice general consul of Germany in Barcelona and I entered a different world in a way. He had to open an art exhibition my first night there and bureaucracy didn't allow that I went with him. He was picked up by a huge, bullet-proof BMW and was driven more than 600 km while Candida and I checked out some art galleries and saw a ballet. It was moving to see a Barcelonean friend of the choreographer dance his homage which he did shortly before he died of AIDS in 92.

Ove and I still had time to talk a lot, though they had to go to a big dinner the next night. It was arranged before they knew about my visit and I enjoyed the "free" evening to sit down with my notebook. The apartment is the biggest I have ever been in, since it is also used for "business" dinners. The inherited silverware is actually made out of silver and I took this treat with a smile. Both were most interested in our trip and we spent hours chatting. Candida also went to the market to get goodies for our huge lunch packet for the drive.

Both of them are fluent in German, English, Portuguese, Italian, French, Danish, Candida in Spanish already and she is learning Russian out of pure enjoyment for learning. I am blown by people so well educated and interested in languages as well as in the arts and plenty of other stuff. And it was my special pleasure to dress up and wear my nice jacket since they only knew me with long hair and wild clothes.

Keni, Misha and I met downtown and got on the road. Misha was kinda sick - which is a longer story and will be part of the next newsletter - and we exchanged our experiences. They'd had a good, inexpensive double room with showers at the very friendly "Dali" and met many nice people from various countries. Eating food bought at supermarkets and in restaurants went well and they had liked the city as well as the people a whole lot. It is definitely a place to return to and especially the marina drew them to visit. Being on their own had strengthened their ability to do so very much. They had been very thoughtful about their protection and got the ideas of hiding values in their shoes and change in the cigarette packs. Now they are ready and willing to do the next step, which includes getting to the hostel - not a place considered too rough in a metropolitan city anymore - by local public transportation in Madrid.

Currently, we are in Salamanca the sixth day already and heavily involved in studying Spanish, but that is a different story... . Hope to hear from you soon.

Sharing a smile,

Andreas