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Human Castles and Montserrat
Europe » Spain » Catalonia » Monistrol de Montserrat
June 11th 2005 by Kate Hildebrand
Turn, turn, turn
First they get their snazzy sash on. At first I thought it was just for show but they use the sash to help pull themselves up.
Basically they make these human castles up to 10 people high for show and they have contests and everything to see who can make the tallest tower. I had seen pictures of it in travel guides but in real life it is quite the experience because everybody is shaking and I swore someone was going to fall any minute and I'd have to dust off that old Red Cross certification and perform CPR. Here's what killed me they use tiny little baby kids at the very top. I know a couple of soccer moms who would have fainted at this spectacle.
It was a great experience though and I had a lot of fun, I was taking all these pictures and I knew they were wondering what the heck the crazy American was doing and I didn't want to take a flash picture and then have somebody fall so some of the pics are blurry. I talked to some of the builders including the little girls who go waaay at the top. I asked them if they ever got scared and of course they said no. I am glad they didn't ask me to partake because there would have been some casualties.
Today I went to Montserrat. It was nice and all but I don't think I would care to return. Maybe I was expecting too much because it was in my 1000 Places to See Before You Die book and I had heard of it before I came here I just didn't know what it was exactly. I was expecting this church to be balancing at the edge of this huge caldera with jagged rocks at the bottom of the mountain, you know like a warm Nepal or something. But there were all these little old people so it wasn't quite as adventurous as I thought it would be but it was still neat. There's a Basilica with the Black Virgin, a statue of Mary and it's black! So its sort of a pilgrimage that all Catalans have to do.
Well I'm keeping busy. I'm painting another area of the house and I'm going to the discotheque soon with some South Americans and an Italian. You know like you wore a tie like Richard Gere and all that.
Little kids way at the top!
Another even littler kid is going to sit on top of these little kids and wave.
The had a wedding
and they threw rice and now the birds are eating it and the rice will expand and they will explode am I rite?
There she is!
Miss America! No, the black virgin! Her other hand is out of the plastic casing and you're supposed to kiss it but I didn't I probably should have in retrospect.
FREEDOM FOR CATALONIA
This is written EVERYWHERE here, the vast majority of the time in English, and I can't figure out why. It's like they're trying to extract sympathy from me for their oh-so-oppressed separatist moveme... [more]
2 Comments - Add Public Comment or Send Private Message
November 14th 2005 - Anders L. Hansson: Catalonia and the struggle for survival
Kate,
I don't know if you're ironic about the oppressed separatists of Catalonia, or what, but it's a fact that Catalonia has been struggling for its life during many years. The Spanish dictator Franco almost extinguished Catalonia's langaguage, Catalan, and culture. Today the struggle is still about the survival of culture, but also about autonomy and the right to keep more of the money.
"Freedom" can mean a lot of things - not necessarily an "independent" state, even though some catalans aim for that. But whether Catalonia ought to be a state of its own or not isn't the big issue. The thing is to be able to decide Catalonia's destiny in Catalonia, without interference from Madrid.
Anders L. Hansson
Barcelona
www.annors.com/blog
April 9th 2007 - Veronica: Kate
Kate I don't have words to express what i felt when I red your post about Catalonia, about the castells and about the freedom petiton for catalonia. Your are laughing all the time and explain it with irony. I think this is not an actitud form an inteligent person and I think you don't have nothing about history I'm sorry but you are totally stupid you don't have any word to describe you better.
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