The building in the back is my high school. It is called Institut Ausias March and it is located in the upper part of Barcelona, Spain. I went there between 1994 and 1997. The picture is taken from the park Cervantes. It is a public park, meaning it was and it is free to visit. If I look back at my school years, I remember this park more than the school itself. I ate my lunch here every day with my friends. We talked about our lives and walked in between of the beds of roses.

This is the bench we used to sit and eat our sandwiches. And then walk, for about ten minutes, as our breaks were short.

When you looked up you saw roses over your head.

This was (and is) the view of the park and of the city from where we ate our lunch.

I remember one year, it was my birthday and my friend Mireia brought me a container full of home-made Buñuelos. Then, I have just returned from a trip to Portugal where I tried Buñuelos for the first time and I guess I mentioned how good those were. And Mireia did them at home and brought them to school for lunch. It was a surprise and we ate them there on the grass, picnic style. I never forgot this one!

The park is in the upper part of Barcelona and very few people know about it. I have never seen tourists in the park. And many times our small group of three or four girls were the only people there at 10:30am.

Today I took my daughter to this park. Every day my belief in beauty becomes stronger. We need to surround our children with the most beautiful sounds, views, thoughts. Otherwise they will never be akin to the real beauty. The only way to keep them away from vulgarity, is to get their eyes used to looking at trees and flowers; Is to get their ears used to listening to the most beautiful music; Is to get their minds used to thinking about life, and magic and the power of the human spirit.

What haunts me about these olive trees is the round shadow they project on the grass. It reminds me of the rose window in the cathedrals. It makes me feel its silence and serenity.

At 10:30am you can still see the moon from the park. Looking back at my school years, I used to think in verse.