Martha Washington Star

 

Vallvidrera is a town in the mountains of Spain, near Barcelona. You can reach Vallvidrera via bus or funicular. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Mallorca and the Pyrenees. The people who live in Vallvidrera claim to have invented the game of curling 500 years ago, a year ahead of the Scots. There’s no actual evidence of this, but they don’t let a little thing like that bother them. Vallvidrera does have a curling team. Every year, the team meets at the reservoir to see if the ice is thick enough to play. It never is, primarily because the temperature there seldom dips below the 40’s. The curling team has never actually played. But they don’t let a little thing like that bother them. They all head to a local restaurant and order brunch. They raise their glasses and shout, “Jugarem!” which means, “We shall play!” in Catalan.