Liberal Arts, Spring 2017, Newsletter II

This semester we are very proud to offer students  three new cultural experiences: a visit to  an Almazara, in the Granada area, where they produce the extra virgin olive oil; to learn about the traditional methods of fishing in the Mediterranean in the Fishing Museum; and a visit to a dairy farm that ensures social labor to people with mental disabilities.  Here there are more details:

The taste of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

As part of our weekend trip to the south of Spain, to Granada, Liberal Arts students had the opportunity to visit an Almazara, where the traditional process of making extra virgin olive oil from the fresh olives brought from the thousands of olive trees that decorate the Andalusian fields.

Students enjoyed the olive oil tasting where they tried three different:  the Premium Extra Virgin (from the first fresh olives picked in October); the Virgin or the regular olive oil.

Traditional fishing methods in the Mediterranean

What lies behind a plate of fish? Tradition, hours of work and a lot of skill!
Our students visited the Fishing Museum in Palamós, in the Costa Brava, a place where you can get to know the skills, marine species, how this art developed and the fishing of the future. The museum, the only one of this kind in the Mediterranean, aims to provide a place for dialogue between the people of the sea and the rest of society.

Students learned had a tour where they learned the traditional methods of fishing and afterwards they participated in a fish cooking class. They cooked the “fisherman dish” with fresh fish and rice or noodles.

A dairy farm to integrate people with mental disabilities

Students had the opportunity to visit for the first time, La Fageda, a cooperative that primarily produces yogurts and dairy puddings and employs mentally challenged population. The propose of La Fageda is to take  people with mental health problems out of psychiatric hospitals, to offer them a real job –in an enterprise- and through this help to restore their self-esteem.

Students visited the farm, fed the baby cows, learned about the cooperative and its project and afterwards they did a guided hike at the beautiful beech forest.