Bill was busy all day (after breakfast) with the motivational interviewing training. He is in one of two English speaking groups, which as many Scandinavians (and a couple of Israelis), as they do Americans. There are French and Spanish-speaking groups, and apparently the Norwegians feel more comfortable with us (and it's a good thing someone does!). However, after a hard days work (and it was hard for me too....sitting at the pool with a group of extremely white Englishmen and women, rapidly turning a bright purple....and continuing to sit by the pool...while I resisted saying a word or slathering them with my 45 sunscreen), we got out tonight, into downtown Sitges.
We walked there, though the more scenic route, along the North end of the seawall, is closed for repair. One of the first things we came to was a Bronze of Santiago Rosignol, a Modernisme artist, contemporary of Antoni Gaudi, who moved to Sitges in the late 1800s.
It developed as an artist colony and small cultural center under him, so it's right that they honor him. And, while the museum, which features his art and others, is in a beautiful building (each huge wooden door is completely different), Sitges is no longer considered an artist colony, but a beautiful beach town on the Costa Brava.
The part of the beach walk that is not under construction is just past the Church of St. Bartolomeo, which was built in the 17th century. The huge staircase past the church leads down into a kind of town square, where there were lots of children playing soccer,(I retrieved a soccer ball for a little boy, too short to reach the window well in which the ball was lodged, and too shy to ask me to get it for him) but he smiled a beautiful “gracias.”
We stopped at Lola's for a drink and some people watching, before walking a long way into town,lots of interesting shops. We walked past the Buenos Aires Grill, where a waiter asked if we wanted to sit down. We told him we weren't hungry yet, and he said, “Des Pues (maybe later) and indeed, it's where we walked back to when we finished. We had a table by the sea, a great bottle of Malbec and a steak where the beef was flown here from Argentina.
The little British girl, waiting the table behind us, told the two English couples at that table that things were bad in Sitges. Several restaurants have closed and the people who do come are not spending as much money. We left a big tip. It did seem to us that there were not many people here for the start of the Summer season.
Tomorrow it's back to work for Bill, who is learning a lot, and for me, as I wait by the pool with my sunscreen for the unsuspecting British!
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