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An Introduction to Flat Stanley
About a month ago, one of my cousins from California asked me if I could receive her son’s Flat Stanley in Barcelona where I live with my husband and son Ilai. Although I wasn’t very familiar with this project, I was eager to receive correspondence and connect with family–especially if it means widening the cultural horizons of one of my third cousins! Shortly after, I informed myself all about this Flat Stanley Project and now am even more thrilled with its aim to create community awareness in the most fun and adventurous of ways.
Dear Alfred, this adventure is for you! We enjoyed getting to know your mini-me, and we hope that you can learn lots of things about where we live from his very special visit here.
Flat Stanley in Barcelona, Catalunya
A view of the Mediterranean Sea from atop the mountains
A view of the mountains from the city streets
It’s me, Stanley, and I had a great time in Barcelona with Irene, Sam and Ilai. It took a little over a week for the letter carrying me to arrive here. I had to fly west over the whole continent of North America, over the Atlantic Ocean, and over the whole peninsula of Portugal and Spain to arrive to the North-Eastern tip of Spain where Catalunya is. Good thing I am flat and didn’t get uncomfortable in the ride! Once I got here, I had a welcome party with my hosts. They told me that Barcelona is sandwiched between mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. It really is beautiful here!
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Sam, Irene and Ilai took me on some fun excursions. First, I had to get in Ilai’s stroller and then we went walking from the apartment to the metro. I really liked waiting inside the station for the metro to come. When it came in it looked a lot like a train, just that it was running on a track that winds through underground tunnels.
We got out of the metro on the “Arc de Triomf” stop, and as soon as we went up the elevator to the ground level and stepped out on the street we found this HUGE monument in the shape of an arc! There were street performers, tons of people walking around, and some guy was blowing HUGE bubbles!
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We walked through the old city, which they explained to me as being thousands of years old. It has ruins from so many different civilizations: the Romans, the Iberians, the Moors, the Jews. It was fascinating. After walking around, we came to the Santa Llucia Christmas Fair in the middle of the Gothic quarter, right in front of the Cathedral of Barcelona. There were a lot of booths selling typical Catalan items. Did you know that during Christmas time, they have lots of “poopy” traditions? First of all, they have a “caganer” (“pooper”) farmer squatting and going poo-poo in the nativity scene where baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem. No one could explain to me why this farmer was there doing that, but everyone has this figurine in their homes hiding in their nativity scenes. Something about fertility, good luck, or chance. He is very interesting. I read up a bit on him in wikipedia, have a look here if you’d like to know more too! The other poopy thing they have going on here is the “cagatío”. This is a log which is decorated with a red baret, big eyes and a big mouth. Sometimes he wears glasses and has a pipe. The strange thing about him is that the children feed him, sing a song to him and hit him with a stick for him to poop out their Christmas presents. There’s a great video of a nice family hitting and singing to their poop log here.
The next day, we went on our last excursion together: the local market! We went there to buy fresh meat, fish, lentils, fruit and vegetables. The market is open every day and people go there to buy their food every day so that it is fresh. I particularly liked the whole fish laying on the ice cubes with big teeth! They had lots of cured meats hanging everywhere like sausages and skinned animals hanging in the windows. The seem to eat a lot of olives here, because they had so many different types that I had never seen before.
After the market, they put me in an envelope to send me back to your classroom. I had to wait a week in the envelope before the Post Office would open because of national holidays, but I finally made it out on December 16th. I had a great trip here in Barcelona and I learned so many things. But, I really can’t wait to get back home again.
Alfred's Flat Stanley An Introduction to Flat Stanley About a month ago, one of my cousins from California asked me if I could receive her son's Flat Stanley in Barcelona where I live with my husband and son Ilai.
