Girona

I can picture it happening: Jaume I, during a battle, accepts that he is facing his last precious breaths. He places his hand onto his bloody chest directly over his heavy-beating heart, and in one final moment of consciousness spreads his fingers across the golden shield that protected him while he protected his people. So romantic and so proud is the story told about the Catalan flag, yellow with red stripes.
I thought of that hero today while visiting Girona, an ancient city in the Catalonian region of Spain. I wished Jaume could see the way that Catalonians to this day have harnessed his spirit and made it their own.
Spaniards, and more specifically Catalonians, were unfamiliar to me three months ago when I moved to Barcelona. There are obvious universal gestures and habits among human kind that ease the foreign feeling, but I was still among a people I could never have sketched out in my mind.
The layout of a new culture comes with a change of normality, but with subtleties that could easily never be pinpointed. These charming little habits have either become a part of my character, or are traits that I will never be able to take with me when I return to the States. Either way, Catalonia has won a place in my heart.
It was just another Saturday in Girona, and I was lucky enough to melt into it perched up on a lovely bench. Children played on wooden tricycles in the main plaza. The yellow balloons tied to their wrists painted the air with energy. The backdrop, the main ancient cathedral and one of Girona’s rivers, completed the scene.
The buildings and neighborhoods in these cities are more than just the past. They encompass stories with lessons to be learned. Moments of history are made infinite as the generations pass them down. Jaume I’s heroic moment, among other phrases and tales, is a lifestyle.
The sheets and clothes hanging to dry on balconies waved goodbye to me as I looked out the window of my bus. The day trip was over and I would soon be in back home Barcelona, the same place that was nothing more than facts from a guidebook only three months ago. The sun drenched my eyes with it’s golden light, so I closed them and took in the day once more. Goodbye Girona, thanks for being a stop on my journey.