a wandering woman writes

Monday, July 23, 2007

Three perfect days in the enchanted forest



I'm back from three perfect days in the enchanted forests of the Sierra of Francia.

A weekend in La Alberca in honor of Kathleen's performance in the Teatro Municipal on Saturday night turned into one of the most magical trips I've taken during my three years in Spain. We joined in a traditional alborada Friday evening (parading through town behind the drum, pipe and castanets to serenade first the groom and later the bride of Saturday's wedding), caught a wedding with all the traditional trimmings, hiked to a paradisical mountain spring in Las Batuecas for an icy-cold swim, and hung out with a herd of Iberian mountain goats halfway up the Peña de Francia. And then there was Kathleen's heavenly voice, written up today in Salamanca's La Gaceta.

If you haven't met Kathleen, you'll find her here now and again round the comment box. Her own blog is always a pleasure to read, because it is, as she says, the blog of someone "privileged to be make a living doing the thing that they love". In Kathleen's case, the "thing" is to sing. Saturday night I was privileged to see what a stroke of luck Spain snatched up the day Kathleen decided not to board a plane back to New York. Watch her sing and you'll hear that little voice this blog is about. You know the one .. the one that wants you to spend all the minutes you can just doing that thing ... that one thing you love.

This is a photo of Friday evening's walk to the Ermita of San Marcos, while the sun set over the lagoon.

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3 Comments:

  • Sounds heavenly !!!

    Thanks for writing it up, writes she who misses the wandering.

    By Blogger Di Mackey, at 2:21 PM  

  • Excuse me, I hope you don't find me rude in saying that "ermita" is without "H". You have a wonderfull on line dictionary in spanish here: http://www.rae.es/.

    Mind you, many people make spelling mistakes when h, g, j, b and v are used, and I allways think what you write in spanish is very well writen (better than my English, for sure).

    Alex

    By Blogger Alex Castellá, at 4:05 PM  

  • Oh, I've only just begun to write it up, ww. ;)

    And far from thinking you rude I appreciate the heads up, Alex. I use RAE constantly for work, constantly, it's bookmarked, I promise, but sadly, when I write without thinking or editing later, well, I type some oddly morphed Spanglish spellings. That was half English and half Spanish. Hermitage, I thought about translating it, but clealry decided to misspell it instead. ;) This morning I reread my post of a few days ago and spotted "Brasil" all the way through it. Brazil in Spanish in an English post. Oh well. Did I mention I was a spelling bee champion before I messed my brain up with castellano? I 'll try to slow down, reread and edit around here.

    By Blogger Erin, at 4:20 PM  

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