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Published: October 2nd 2011
Castells: Emma's team
This is a picture of Emma's Castells team. The young girls at the top have the most terrified looks on their faces. I was nervous for Emma and those girls at the top. I can't even imagine how scared they must have been!This weekend is the weekend of La Merce in Barcelona. La Merce is the biggest festival in the city of Barcelona and is celebrated with concerts, dancing, and other Catalonian festivities. My roommate, Christian, and a lot of the Santa Clara guys went to Ibiza this weekend instead. I wanted to stay in Barcelona this weekend though because this festival is very important to Barcelona- and it's cheaper than going to Ibiza.
Tonight I kicked off my celebration of La Merce with my fellow Catalonians. Plaza Catalonia has been buzzing with anticipation for the past week. The students at IES and I have been enjoying the blocked-off streets surrounding Plaza Catalonia for the festival because there have been less cars slowing down our commute to school.
A few of my friends and I wandered around the Gothic quarter of the city before the festival. Dana and I went to Plaza del Rei to watch a band warm up for the festival. There were a lot of people in the plaza watching the band with us. I think the band was a Catalonia band but I can't confirm that. Anyways, Dana and I were sitting on the stone ground before
Castells Pyramid
This is a picture of the Castells show. These people are forming a human pyramid as opposed to competing in the tower competition. the stage with a few families next to us. The families had two children: a boy and a girl of about 3 years. The two children were interesting to behold because they were so naive and not yet affected by the Catalonia culture as the adults of Spain. They reminded me of the worldliness of human nature, how we interact with each other without culture as a barrier. It was interesting because these two children were like a window of how similar people are from all parts of the world.
Tonight I met a man named Rolland in a bar in Barcelona. I introduced myself to him and asked some questions, like what he does for a living and how he likes Barcelona. He responded to these questions but he wasn't that friendly about my questions. He told me that I was very inquisitive. I thought it was odd because I am accustomed to asking people simple questions like these when I introduce myself to others. I learned in my "Management Across Borders" class that other cultures are not as trustworthy or outgoing in conversations like these, and sometimes people from other cultures don't like to respond to these
La Merce
A concert in Plaza Catalonia during La Merce. types of questions.
The next morning, Saturday, I woke up to nature raining on my parade. After breakfast, my host dad tried to tell me that it was raining outside and I would get wet if I went to the La Merce events today, in Spanish of course. I didn't understand everything that he was saying, particularly the word "mojado." "Mojado" means wet in Spanish. After he repeated himself a few times, he went over to the kitchen sink, rinsed his hands, and splashed me with water saying, "estas mojado", "you are wet." I laughed, wrote down the word mojado on a piece of paper, and posted it to the corkboard in my bedroom so I wouldn't forget that word.
Later that afternoon, I went to Plaza Espanya to check out some of the festivities. Some of the museums in the city were free today and I wanted to take full advantage of that. I went to a museum called CaixaForum. Fortunately of unfortunately, the exhibits were only in Spanish and Catalan so I had to force myself to translate the descriptions of the exhibits. "The Art Collection of the Red Cross" exhibit featured paintings and pictures of
Red Cross relief. The exhibit started in 1977 when Joan Miro donated a picture called "Gracies/Gracias" or "thank you" in Catalan and Spanish for the health care he received. Other artists have donated paintings to this charitable exhibit since then. I really enjoyed this exhibit in relation to the other exhibits because I could understand the significance of these paintings, or at least vaguely. One of the exhibits featured portraits of people in Barcelona from the 19th century, and I didn't have a strong appreciation for it because I didn't know the significance behind the portraits.
Afterwards, I went to MNAC: Museu Nacional D'Art De Catalonia. However, I arrived a little too late and the museum closed when I arrived. I walked around Plaza Espanya to see what else was in the plaza but came up empty-handed as there were no museums to enter or festivities to watch. So, I decided to go back home.
Later on, I went for a run to Mount Tibidabo. I printed out the route I would take from my house to the top of the mountain so I wouldn't get lost. However, I greatly underestimated the difficulty of running up this mountain.
At Santa Clara, I am accustomed to running up hills and small mountains, as I run up Rancho San Antonio a lot when I'm at school. Mount Tibidabo is nothing like running up Rancho San Antonio, not even close. The mountain was so steep, and I ran up stairs for literally half a mile at one point during the run. The run was worthwhile when I reached the summit of the mountain. The view from the top is absolutely astonishing, it is the highest point in Barcelona that I know of, and the mountain offers a panoramic view of the entire city and the Mediterranean Sea. I poked my head inside the church but I was in no shape to walk around the basilica: I was drenched with sweat and not dressed properly. I would like to return to Tibidabo again to walk around the church and visit the museum in the future because it is an amazing site to see in Barcelona. However, I will never run up that mountain again as my legs are screaming at me right now as I type this blog after I ran earlier.
When I returned home, I was dripping with sweat
from my trek up Mount Tibidabo. I went into the kitchen where my host dad was cutting fruit. I told him, "estoy mojado." "I am wet."
I went to Plaza Catalonia to listen to some jazz music that night. There was a jazz band named St. Andrew's Jazz on stage in front of the Armani building. The band played very well and had people dancing in the crowd. I really enjoyed their version of the song "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone." It started to rain again but I didn't want to leave the plaza. Fui mojado and I walked over to some trees to seek shelter from the rain while the band continued to play. I had a great time listening to jazz music before I met up with some friends later on that night. The music was very relaxing, and relieved the commotion of La Merce.
On Sunday I went to Plaza St. Juame to watch the Castells performance. The plaza was packed with people watching this event because it is one of the most popular events of La Merce. The Castells is a series of performances and competitions in which people climb
on each other to form human towers. In the competition, teams try to stack the most people on top of each other without the tower of people collapsing. It is really dangerous and the children who participate in this event are required to wear helmets. I watched some of the teams compete and I honestly couldn't tell who was more nervous: the children at the top of human tower or me watching them. The child that climbs to the very top of the tower has her name written on her back, similar to a professional athlete wearing his last name on his back. There was this one young girl, probably around the age of four, who was terrifying to watch. She and the three other children at the top with her were shaking and wore gasping looks across their faces. Little Emma almost reached the top, but she decided to back down when she saw how scared her friends were. I have to give her credit though, I probably wouldn't have made it half way as far up the tower as she did.
Later that night I watched the Correfoc celebration in Via Laietana in the city with my
Correfoc
This is a picture of a dragon blowing fireworks in the Correfoc parade. It's hard to make out the image but there are "devils" in front of the fireworks as well. friends Anna and Julia. Correfoc is a traditional celebration of La Merce that involves a parade of dragons blowing fireworks from their nostrils and Catalonians lighting fireworks. Thousands of festival-goers cram into Via Laietana to watch this dangerous event. The dragons progressed out of "Hell's Gate." I hope that was the last time I stood before the gates of Hell.
The three of us made our way through the crowd and noticed that people were wearing long-sleeved clothes, hooded sweatshirts, neckerchiefs, and even protective goggles to be safe from the sparks that fly into the crowds. Luckily, we were far enough from the dragons and their fireworks to avoid any dangers. It was an interesting sight to see: dragons blowing fireworks and people dressed as devils lighting their fireworks and dancing around the sparks. I couldn't believe the whole thing was legal or that people would be willing to subject themselves to such a dangerous activity. The devils in the parade who lit their fireworks and played the drums were very different people. They would light their fireworks and dance around as if they belonged to a cult. I felt like I stepped into "Paradise Lost" as this event
La Merce
A concert in Plaza Catalonia during La Merce. eerily felt like pandemonium.
I ended my La Merce weekend in Plaza Espanya that night. My RA invited her residents and me to her apartment to watch the fireworks in the plaza. It was an impressive venue as there were thousands of people gathered there that night. The playlist for the firework show was enjoyable, but I was surprised that all of the songs were by American artists: Michael Jackson, The Beetles, Outkast, and others.
La Merce was an extraordinary festival to attend in Barcelona. Although my friends who went to Ibiza this weekend had a blast there, I am glad I chose to stick around in Barcelona this weekend for the city's largest annual festival. The festival was a great opportunity to experience Catalonian culture and traditions.
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