First Meeting with a ‘Live’ Santa Claus

Our two-year-old is being indoctrinated with the magic of Santa Claus. At home, his older brother cannot stop talking about him. On our short walk to kindergarten, we pass by two shops with mixed merchandize, and ‘Santa Claus climbing a ladder’ must be their best-selling product this year. To my oldest son’s disappointment, we are one of few Vilanova households who still do not have one hanging from our balcony. Now the same shops offer the ‘human size Santa Claus moving his hips while singing Jingle Bells’. I fear that he will soon start to turn up at school entrances and supermarkets, since it is obvious that many people are unable to resist buying anything which is cheap.

None of this mental preparation helped when the ‘live’ version visited the Scandinavian Club today. “Ledsen” (sad) was how our younger one summed up the event.

Rare But Regular Church Attendance

As most modern Swedish families, we are not actively religious. I have to admit that while living in Sweden, my wife and I never went to mass together. Still, here in Catalonia our children will grow up with parents who visit church regularly, albeit only once a year.

Saturday 14, the Scandinavian Club of Barcelona held its traditional Christmas mass. The simple but intimate German church (C/ Brusi), which we borrow for the event, was as packed as always. The program was a well balanced mix of a religious mass, a Santa Lucia procession, choir singing and psalms in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. I do not think that Scandinavian ex-patriates are more fervent believers than those who remain in our home countries. So, is it so that we are more concerned about maintaining traditions or do we only have a stronger urge to remind ourselves that we are not alone?

Enjoying a Sunny Christmas

We were not too happy to see our two-year-old breaking a flower pot as soon as he came out on the balcony today. Neither did we think it was a great idea for him to then play with the soil, but had to give in. It has, after all, been quite some time since he last had a chance to play in the sand and today it was really warm in the sun.

This year we are spoiled with a sunny December but at the same time go through the most traditional Advent which we have had for years. So what does this make me realize? Well, above all that we do not need snow for a true Christmas atmosphere. It rather is about experiencing it all from a child’s perspective. With a four-year-old who is old enough to observe, analyse and remember, but still young enough to fully believe in Santa Claus, we very much do.

IKEA instead of Goethe

There is the German Goethe Institut, the British Council and the Alliance Française, all promoting these nation’s languages and culture to other people. The Chinese recently started up Confucius Institutes with the same mission. We Swedes do not have anything of the kind or, rather, that is how it seems at first sight.

In reality we have IKEA and I doubt that any other country’s institutions can match their rate of expansion. Very few of the products they sell are manufactured in Sweden, but we do not care. There still is something Scandinavian about their design and the botiga sueca as well as the restaurants offer some of our national specialties to the whole world.

This is where our chamber of commerce organizes its traditional Christmas party and lets us enjoy Corallerna’s Santa Lucia procession. A home away from home for Swedish ex-patriates.

Budesca at La Sala – a counterweight to the cold weather

Our local centre of modern art La Sala currently presents H2O aigua by Vilanova artist Joaquim Budesca. Other artists might paint dark, dangerous and dramatic seas. Budesca, as I see it, successfully limits himself to the play of sunlight and currents among stones in shallow waters. Warm colours serve as a reminder about the nice climate we have here. The current drop in temperatures will not last forever.

My oldest son starts to like La Sala, but the reason is the open space rather than the art in itself. Budesca did, however, manage to catch his attention with some rather abstract paintings in white and black - very different from the detailed and colourful pieces which were my personal favorites.

The exhibition will hang until January 20, 2008. It is well worth more than one visit.

The best thing about Catalan nationalism

In a few weeks, we will see the birth of an independent Kosovo, with the support of the EU and the USA. Interestingly enough, Spain happens to be one of the few EU countries which strongly opposes this.

I am the first to agree that many culturally strong regions can not flourish within today’s national borders. However, the solution I favour is a stronger role of the regions within the EU, rather than a bigger and bigger number of small nation states.

In Spain, Kosovo’s coming independence will for sure re-ignite the debate about Catalonia’s future status. There might exist a silent minority againt independence, as some politicians claim, but I am not sure any longer. What I do know, however, is that compared with former Yugoslavia on the one hand, and Basque Country ETA’s violent separatism, on the other, Catalans can pride themselves for peaceful and democratic methods. Visca Catalunya!

Time to be Swedish, or at least Scandinavian

I put on Navidad con los Lunnis while we started to decorate our apartment for Christmas. My oldest son immediately told me that his favourite song was Campanas de Belén (Campana sobre campana) - I did not even know that he knew the song. At the same time, his younger brother was dancing, repeatedly screaming molt bé in front of one of the loudspeakers. How good that Christmas will bring us several occasions to underline the Swedish side of our background. We would love to see our oldest son participating in his first Lucia procession, but he is far from thrilled with the idea. However, we certainly do look forward to seing the younger one's face when Santa Claus turns up at the children’s Christmas party organized by the Club Escandinavo de Barcelona. Which feeling will prevail - fascination or fear?

Joaquim Blume – World Class Gymnastics in Vilanova

Last weekend, Saturday November 10, the 32nd Joaquim Blume Memorial competition in gymnastics took place here in Vilanova. It is a true pleasure to have a chance to see world class gymnasts without having to leave home. Let us hope that Vilanova can continue to be one of the strongholds of Spanish gymnastics.

Fifty years ago, in 1957, Catalan Joaquim Blume won the title as European Champion of Gymnastics, beating legends like Yuriy Titov, Russia, and Max Benker, Switzerland. In 1959, Mr. Blume perished in an airplane accident but since 1969 the Federació Catalana de Gimnàstica honours his memory through an annual competition, the oldest and most prestigious competition in Spanish gymnastics.

The Memorial Joaquim Blume always takes place in the province of Barcelona and for the last few years it has been arranged in the Pavellò Municipal del Garraf here in Vilanova i la Geltrú. Last year was the first time I personally found my way to the it and although I liked what I saw back then, only this year was I truly impressed.

The competition in itself has a compressed and audience friendly format. There is no total winner so the focus in on the individual disciplines (for men six and for women four), of which each participant can decide to take part in two or three. This results in a punctuality we are not used to in this country – two and a half hours after the beginning we saw the prize ceremony start, exactly as of schedule. Apparently, we were 1.500 people in the audience, a statistics partly improved by the fact that there had been competitions for younger gymnasts in the hall earlier during the day. A comprehensive program and an improved result screen compared to last year, made it all easy to follow.

This year, the Chinese participants stood out. In the men’s competition, Xen Yibing, double World Champion in rings, easily won that discipline with a breath taking show of strength, while on the women’s side, Li Shanshan was the winner of the floor exercise and the beam. Although there were several participants from the national teams of Russia, the Ukraine and Romania, the Spanish gymnasts proved to be in a very good shape. Almost local Melodie Pulgarín (she is from Martorell) won the asymmetric bars and the vault on the women’s side and while Isaac Botella (Alacant) and Sergio Muñoz (Madrid) won one discipline each. Frenchman Yann Cucherat, with his 28 years one of the oldest participants, won the high bar and the parallel bars.

I certainly did not know anything about Vilanova’s history in Spanish gymnastics when I moved here, but since I come from a family with a strong involvement in Swedish gymnastics, I was happy to discover that our new home town has produced several Olympic Games participants of this sport.

What Vilanova mayor Joan Ignasi Elena thought about the international top gymnasts who took part in the competition, I can not tell. However, he was standing at attention, radiating with pride, while a group of gymnasts from our local club made performance a as an intermezzo before the prize ceremony started. So, I dare to conclude that gymnastics has at least one very influential fan here in the town.

Fira de Novembre starting to grow on me

Vilanova is a relatively unimportant satellite in the gravitation field of Barcelona. Currently we go through an especially difficult period, since communications with the metropolitan area are heavily disturbed. One way to remain optimistic about the future of our town is to change the perspective and a look at what it has to offer in itself. This weekend, the Fira de Novembre was literally impossible to avoid.

I have always liked exhibitions as a chance for a company to present its products to people who have not yet heard of it. Still, I have had difficulties to appreciate earlier versions of Vilanova’s multi-sectoral outdoor exhibition Fira de Novembre since I never understood who was the target group. My four-year-old son was the first person to start to change my perception of this annual event. Cars make up a dominating part of the fair since physically they take up a lot of space. For people with pushchairs, pavements here are often too narrow and normally the Rambla is one of the few areas where you can move freely. During the fira, however, walking there feels like slalom skiing between cars and people. I tried to find alternative routes in the small streets but then my oldest son firmly stopped me from doing so. To him, the Rambla turned car showroom was nothing but an adventure.

This week’s issue of Diari de Vilanova made my feelings for the fair develop further. In an interesting interview with Josep-Tomàs Álvaro, our Councillor of Local Development, did I first get a background to the big number of car dealers – they replace the agricultural machines which historically used to be presented here. Except for that I learnt that what our ajuntament tries to reinforce, is not the very disparate commercial side of the Fira de Novembre, but rather the popular and festive aspects.

So Saturday November 10, I tried to keep an open mind while exploring the different stands. To say that I liked a lot of what I saw would be to lie, but finally have I learnt to accept that that is not the point. By definition, in a fair of this kind you will have to look for your own favourite spots. I found at least three worth mentioning.

I liked to learn about restaurants where I have not been yet and it is to be regretted that so few local restaurants see a value in promoting themselves during the fair. Even more did I like the estand municipal presenting photos of the town’s latest developments projects, although I found it quite deceitful to include pictures of the Teatre Prinicpal. Those should be reserved for 2009 when, apparently, it might finally start to look decent not only from selected angles. Finally and most of all did I appreciate the atmosphere in Plaça d’Enric Cristòfol Ricart where organisations of the town had a chance to present their activities. I was very impressed by the precision and energy of taekwondo club Chois Vilanova as well as the thought through performance by Flow-Center, but also with the big number of Vilanovins who had turned up to watch.

Since the terraces on the Rambla were closed to give space for the cars, what I truly missed was a chance to sit down to let the children have a snack without leaving the fair. My vision would be to have a tent with a food court where people can shop around in different stands but then sit down and eat in a common area; a chance to be together and explore new things at the same time. That ought to be in line with the ajuntament’s festive objectives for the event. Our Fira de Novembre might never be interesting enough to attract big groups of outsiders to come here, but I think that it already helps to foster a unique Vilanova spirit. That is good enough.

Zapatero’s high speed loss of Catalonia

My wife and I do not particularly agree with the political program of CUP, a small left wing party advocating an independent Catalonia. Still, yesterday we decided to join their demonstration to show our support for the message Estem farts! (We have had enough!), from Vilanova to Spanish prime minister Zapatero. What we are fed up with this time is not the Spanish state in general but more concretely with the government’s latest fiasco.

In Spanish politics, centralism as opposed to regionalism forms a dividing line almost as strong as the ideological one. Generally speaking, the incumbent socialist central government can usually count on the passive support from all Catalan political forces, from the left to the right. The only exception is Partit Popular - the Catalan branch of the main opposition party - but their strongly centralist agenda renders them a weak role in this autonomy-minded region. A close cut race is expected for next spring's elections to the Spanish parliament. Zapatero’s government has a lead in the polls but his recent mismanagement of problems related to the AVE (Spain’s high speed train) undermines that in a region which he can hardly afford to lose.

To me, the AVE project seems sadly politicized from the beginning. The first line to be opened was Madrid-Sevilla and before the end of this year the Spanish capital will also be connected to Malaga and Valladolid. The highly symbolic connection to the state’s second largest city, Barcelona, will be completed only in 2008. Were it only for the historical delays of this project, Zapatero’s earlier promise to have it inaugurated before Christmas this year, would only seem naïve. Now, with the soil subsiding under the tracks, the competence of his government is seriously being questioned.

Two weeks ago, railway traffic was suspended in the Bellvitge area, the entry into Barcelona. With open holes in the ground, the government did the only thing possible - that is to give priority to the safety of the travellers and the construction workers. People now have to change from train to special buses taking them around the affected zone. In the most heavily trafficked part of the whole Spanish railway network the consequences of such a manoeuvre are dire. When 100.000 daily travellers are moved to buses, ordinary roads collapse from congestion and all at once has the government made sure that nobody escapes the hassle.

And painful it is, indeed, not the least for us out here in Vilanova. When my family moved here, a train journey to Barcelona took 40 minutes. During this year, we have seen that increase to 50 minutes as of standard and on top of that have had a number of big delays due to power cuts or minor accidents caused by the AVE construction works. Comments in our local newspaper reveal that irritation was running high already before the train traffic was cut off completely. These days, people like my wife, who takes the train to work in Barcelona, spend a minimum of 3 hours a day commuting. To make matters worse, until now, nobody has wanted to tell for how long we will have to endure this extraordinary situation.

Tomorrow, November 5, Zapatero has promised to inform on when the commuter trains will again start to operate as of schedule. Whatever his message will be, he can expect severe criticism from the whole range of Catalan politicians. The comments from PP, and possibly those from right-wing CiU and extreme left ERC, he might be able to disregard. However, this time he had better act on what we hope to hear from his fellow socialist Montilla, president of the Generalitat, and Joan Ignasi Elena, the mayor of Vilanova i la Geltrú. During the latest month, Zapatero has repeatedly made his local party leaders seem embarrassingly powerless. To describe what the inhabitants of Catalonia now feel about the central government, Estem farts! is clearly an understatement.