Interview wtih Joanne Newman
My name is Joanna Newman, I'm 40 years old (can't believe it!) and I've been living in Vic since August 2007. I work part-time teaching English at home and translating. I'm British and my partner, Joan, is Catalan - he's from Vic. Our little boy, Sam, is 18 months old. Sam was born in Barcelona in a private hospital; "La Clinica el Pilar". We decided to pay privately as we were not happy, especially my partner, with the care we received from the national health service gynaecologist. The gynaecologist I was allocated was unsympathetic to our concerns and impatient with our questions. I was also very uncomfortable with the idea of not knowing who was going to be present at the birth. Going privately was the best decision we made. I had two highly experienced doctors, a midwife and a private room! I was lucky enough to have an easy labour and fast recovery and it helped feeling 100% confident in the abilities and professionalism of the medical team.
Moving to Vic was an easy process in practical terms as my partner is from here and works nearby. We had a look at the price of flats to rent and found they were half the price of what you'd pay in Barcelona. That was a big issue for us as the flat we rented in Barcelona was 50 square metres and we felt that the prices of bigger flats in areas we liked were beyond what we felt was reasonable. And with a small child we really felt we needed somewhere bigger.
I have to say that, despite the fact that my partner is from Vic, I still feel like an outsider. Vic is lovely town, but it's small, conservative and, obviously with exceptions, the people are hard to get to know. It's going to take a long time for me to build up a circle of friends of my own.
Sam goes to a well-known and lovely nursery school run by nuns - this is quite typical here as there is the largest concentration of convents in Catalunya is here in Vic. The teachers are not nuns, but the sisters are involved with the daily care-taking of the children, preparing the food and helping monitor the playground. The school is impeccable and well-equipped. The staff are firm and affectionate with the children. Sam has adapted well and I'm very happy with the care he receives. As in Barcelona, nursery school places are limited here and up to now there were no public nursery schools. However, I understand that this situation is changing as they are now building 3 new government funded ones. I'm also extremely happy with our paediatrician. He gave us his mobile telephone number at the first appointment and told us we could call him anytime if we were worried about anything. He will always see Sam the same day I call and never makes me feel like I'm wasting his time. That was not the case in Barcelona and we went to the highly famed and reccomended Dexeus paediatric centre.
As for other amenities, there's a library where they do children's story reading sessions, a tennis club with swimming pool, a few small parks with slides are dotted around, but little else. One thing Vic does have is a rich cultural life. There is hardly a weekend goes by that there isn't some kind of activity going on in the main square, whether it's a horse parade or giant statues, there's usually something to entertain all the family. And of course there's the open-air market twice a week which brings people from all the villages over the county and adds a bit of life to the place. Vic wouldn't be the same without the enormous pedestrianised main square and that's where we usually take Sam to kick a ball around knowing there's plenty of space and he'll be safe.
Vic also has a lot of the major chain clothing stores and supermarkets plus plenty of small run local shops if pretty much every type. There's everything you need if you really don't want to go to Barcelona to buy clothes or things for the home. But there are few indoor places to take small children - there's only one indoor park that I know of and I don't think it's well equipped for small children. We haven't been because it hasn't been worth paying the money. This is a bit of a problem as the winters are cold here and you can't be outdoors very much. In the summer the council puts a sand pit in the main square and this is very popular.
Sam has no problem with the language, he understands Catalan and English equally. Catalan is definitely the preferred and most spoken language in Vic. I speak only English to Sam at home and he hears me speaking Spanish outside the home. I understand almost everything in Catalan, but I don't speak it. Joan speaks both Catalan and English to Sam. The language Sam has least notion of is Spanish, but I'm hoping he'll learn it as he gets older.
The main advantage to living in Vic is that it's small so that everything I need is less than a ten-minute walk away and there's no stress of having to take public transport to get around (we are lucky enough to live right in the centre). There are trains and buses to Barcelona, but the train line is very slow, it takes a minimum of 1hour 15 mins. There are plans to improve the line and speed of the trains, but this still will take a few years. Vic is only 70k from Barcelona and it only takes 45 minutes in the car, but with such a slow train service it feels like much further and makes the possibility of commuting to Barcelona much less attractive and practical.
We still prefer to go to Barcelona for fun. We are members of the zoo and intend to take advantage of what both Barcelona and Vic have to offer for family entertainment and education
(Feb 2009)
