Only in Barcelona

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So, this past weekend was the festival of Barcelona´s patron saint, La Merce. It was absolutely crazy. It was basically a four day long celebration with tons of parades, fireworks, and about a million and one concerts of all different types of musicians. The city was so absolutely jam packed, there was barely any room to breathe. On Thursday I went, with my group, to the Magic Fountains which are right in front of the Palace, which used to house the king and queen. The Fountains are situated right down the road from Plaza de Espanya and a former bull fighting arena (which they are now making into a giant shopping mall...booo). Anyways, so, you get to Plaza de Espanya and there are two huge towers on both sides of the street and there are colossal buildings with tons of columns on both sides of these towers. As you walk past the towers, you proceed up towards the Palace and the fountains. You make your way up the first set of stairs and you are on the level with the fountains and then if you go up another two levels of stairs you will have arrived at the Palace. It is all very regal and beautiful. These fountains were designed for an international exhibition in 1929. Anyways, right after I got there, they started the fountain light show. Basically it was just a fountain show and they changed the lights under the fountains so that when you saw the light through the water it was really beautiful. After a while, the finale started which included about 30 minutes of great classical music and some opera. The music combined with the fountain was so moving. It is funny how something so seemingly simple can be so beautiful and moving.

That was Thursday, and then on Friday I went to a bit of a concert at the Forum but, I was only able to stand the enormous crowds of Spaniards and foreigners for a little while before I left to go explore less crowded venues. Saturday night had to have been one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed or been a part of in my life. So, only in Barcelona would they have a parade in which they have the parade animals spitting fire out of their nostrils. It is very difficult to describe because the ´members´of the parade are just people who are in huge costumes of dragons, and other fire breathing animals. Then the other members of the parade load up tons of firecrackers and gun powder in the mouths of these animals and then light them on fire so that tons of fire comes spitting out from their mouths and then at the end of the fire comes a loud popping noise, somewhat resembling what you would think a bomb would sound like, and then they reload the animals and start the fire breathing all over again.

Okay, sounds interesting, kind of a fire hazard but, kind of cool to watch. But, here is the part where it gets crazy. This is not a stand on the sidelines and watch kind of parade, oh no, that would be way too boring, or safe, depending on the way you look at it. Instead, everyone throws themselves into the path of fire. literally, people sit on the ground and wait for these animals, which are frequently lit up, to spit fire on them and then they run around in this fire. Most people doing it are pretty covered up or at least their hair is somewhat tied back. So, anyways, my friends and I were watching it from the sidelines for a while, and even that is not safe because this fire is like that of a firework, so, thesparks go everywhere. So, there were a few times when we had to make a run into an alley to get a little further from the street so as to avoid catching fire. But, then, we met up with some other people in our group, two of whom had come prepared and were all covered and were running in the fire, etc. with the other lunatics, or brave soul, again it is all a matter of perspective. Anyways, so it is not just like these crazy animal figures running around with sparks flying everywhere, it is a very long parade and in between every batch of animal figures and other people just lighting like human sized sparklers, there are some marching drum lines. So, the combination of the drums and the bombs at the end of the fire is absolutely deafening. Literally, my two friends who were running in the fire still have not gotten their full hearing back. So, when one of the really cool drum lines was passing, we decided just to jump in the parade and walk/dance along with the drum line until the end of the parade route. The drummers/band were absolutely amazing, they were just so entertaining and everyone in the street was dancing along with them. I tried to stay somewhere inbetween the bands, because that meant I was in the middle of the different clusters of fire breathing creatures, which was far enough away not to get burned but close enough to be in the midst of the action. So, we reached the end of the parade route and stayed at the end to watch the parade end. At the end of the parade, the fire trucks on sight pulled out the hoses from the tops of their trucks and sprayed the water over the entire crowd. These were hoses that they use from teh top of the firetrucks to put out fires in houses, in buildings with many stories, so the water reached pretty far and they pretty much aimed to hit everyone. It was so great and extremely hilarious. lol. Lets just say I am lucky that someone knew I would be needing a waterproof camera one of these days. : )

Anyways, after the fire and water parade, we wandered around the city, where there were about 10 huge venues of local and international music artists. I stopped into a few of the venues, they were pretty good.

Then on Sunday, Helaina, my friend who is also in Barcelona, invited me to meet her grandmother´s friend who lives in Barcelona. We thought we were just going to do a little tour around Barcelona, but we got in the car and they told us they were taking us to Montserrat! Which is a mountain about a half hour away. It was so great. Her grandmother´s friend and his friend were like these two old men and they were so excited to impart some of their knowledge to us, it was really cute. The trip was great. We went up to the top of the mountain where there is a big, beautiful church,. We stepped into the mass and luckily, when we were there this choir of young boys was performing, they were so talented, the music was absolutely beautiful and so surreal. I lit a candle in rememberance of my poppy. I thought he would really like to have seen this mountain which has a great view of the city and the Meditteranean in the distance. Anyways, we had a little coffee at the cafe at the top of the mountain and then we drove back. They took us to a little village to go to a tapas restaurant. We did not go into the center of the city for dinner because the city was so crowded this weekend, they did not think we would have luck getting a table. So, we had dinner in this cute little tapas bar in a very quaint little village, which I would have never seen if they had not taken me there because it is pretty off the beaten path. The excursion was all in all really great and I realized that my group has a day trip planned to Montserrat in a few weeks but, now I will be able to see even more of it!

So, as if that were not already a jam packed evening. Last night, for the last day of the festival they had some amazing fireworks above the palace where the fountains are. They had a fireworks show, these were actually in the sky, not on people, and music and there were sooo many people but it was really extraordinary. Again, in travelling I have learned a lot so far and I just realize how grateful and thankful I am to just have sight so that I can see all these absolutely astonishing things in the world.

Much Peace and Love from Barcelona!

I am going to London this weekend, if you have any suggestions, let me know!!!

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