La Mercè: Festa major de Barcelona - 5

I can't get over the fact that it's now been over a month since my arrival in Barcelona.. And that I only have 3 months left here! Aaaaah

This blog is dedicated to the amazing weekend that just wrapped up a few hours ago. As you may be able to tell from the title, La Mercè is the biggest festival all year in Barcelona, and man is it fun! It started as a feast day in 1871 to celebrate Our Lady of Mercy, La Mare de Déu de la Mercè, and has only grown in popularity since. The city buzzes with activity all weekend, and the montage of music, pyrotechnics, fire-wielding demons (actually), and human legos is enough to bewilder even the most unflappable extranjero. Here were some highlights:

Dancing Giants - The weekend kicked off with the graceful promenades of 20-foot tall giants.. Three pairs of gigante royalty, as well as an assortment of creatures (monster, dragon, horse, lion..) took the dance floor at the center of Placa de Sant Jaume in front of a delighted throng hundreds strong. It's a quaint tradition, and I have to give the giants credit for having far more aptitude at dancing than I. Here's a pic my friend took of the prince and his princess on their way to cutting loose Footloose style:



Castells - Catalonians are famous for the art of stacking themselves 8 or 9 layers high on top of one another in amazing displays of strength, stamina, and teamwork called castells. I was impressed with the variety of techniques (such as 4 x 8, 1 x 3 or 2 x 7) that the castell teams used to construct these physics-defying structures. Each design is a bit different, but in general 20 or 30 people form a strong base, on top of which tiers of 2-4 people link arms and legs. Perhaps the most entertaining part of the process comes when the enxaneta, a nimble young child less than 70 lbs in weight, quickly scales the mountain of flesh - unabashedly grabbing hold of his companions' shins, shirts & shoulders - and races to the top, where he or she proudly waves a hand to indicate the successful completion of the pyramid. Over the course of an hour or so, we saw several teams form 12 or 15 castells, with only one failed attempt. The high success rate is not due to the ease of the practice, but rather the skill and commitment of the teams. Here's a pic to give you some idea of what I'm talking about:



Diablos y Fuego - Ok, this was my favorite part of the weekend. I'm not sure how the Correfoc actually gets its name, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came from the word Corre (Spanish for RUN) + a common English profanity.. Basically, it's like the running of the bulls except that instead of bulls chasing you, you get horned pitchfork-wielding dudes with fire. In all seriousness, it's only as dangerous as you want it to be, but still Cataluña is crazy. Here's what goes down: men and women dress like demons, wait for nightfall, and then fire menacing shots into the air as they assemble their forces of hell. Then, the gate opens (not kidding) and hundreds of the diablos rush out with very bright, very hot sparklers shoved on the end of an what appears to be an iron torture device. The sparklers throw specks of fire in every direction, and it's up to you to stay on the side of the street or go and dance with the demons. Of course, I had to dance! Even though you inevitably get burned if you elect to rumba with the rabble-rousers, the worst part is the noise the firecrackers make. Every time they burn out (which is pretty frequently), they emit a bang reminiscent of a banished Boggart. The bangs are disturbing enough when you're 30 yards away, but when they go off right by your ear they are downright deafening. Despite all the pitfalls, I immensely enjoyed the event and now have a burn mark-speckled t-shirt as a souvenir. In case you're wondering why hundreds of otherwise-normal civilians enjoy terrorizing the populace, the key is early inculcation: there is a "kiddy parade" two hours before the real deal in which 5 and 6 year olds run around with the same hot, dangerous sparklers and learn how to be a part of the Barcelonian occult. Crazy!



Concerts - Alright I'm running out of steam a bit here, but I'll try to make it to the end of the blog. The concerts were really great, and they took place all over the city. Among the bands I saw: The Morning Benders, OK Go, Belle and Sebastian, a cool samba/salsa gig, and a ridiculous politically-ramped up Senegalian rap group. Lots of gente (that's people) but fun stuff.

Fireworks - This deserves a bit of attention because it was really cool. There were fireworks all weekend, but by far the biggest & best show was Sunday night; it served as a wonderful nightcap on the weekend. At the base of Montjuic (a famous mini-mountain in Barca), the festival put on an incredible, synchronized pyrotechnics exhibition complemented by a musical montage and water fountain show. The music really added a lot to the already phenomenal fireworks, and at least 75% of the songs were American classics - think "We Will Rock You," "Imagine," "Birdland," & "I'm Yours" (ok, not a classic but you get my point)... Probably overall the best fireworks show I've ever seen. A big chunk of the city (thousands and thousands) showed up on the wide promenade leading from Placa Espanya to the mountain, and everyone just soaked in the sights & sounds.

Thanks for sticking with me through what I'd guess is a mutually exhausting blog post. ¡Adéu!

Un período de transición - 4

So this week's blog is titled for two kinds of transition: the ongoing transition to Spanish culture, and the uber time-consuming transition into fall semester courses.

Good-bye Miquel: Part of the transition out of our 3-week orientation hodge-podge to real academic classes was saying goodbye to Miquel, our beloved Catalan teacher. While I continue having very little interest in learning the subject he taught us, I'm definitely bummed that I won't get to see Willy Wonka's long-lost twin twice a week from this point forward. It's especially disheartening because Miquel had just started adding sound effects (e.g. vrrooooom) in the past couple of classes to add to the entertaining concoction of language that defines his teaching style. Also, his genial cackle successfully sparked several class-wide laugh attacks this past week.. I remember laughing for at least 2-3 minutes straight in the wake of Miquel's ridiculous mannerisms.. It was one of those things where you forget what you were originally laughing about and just keep going because everyone around you is unable to control their own chortling. However, we finally managed to keep it together long enough to bid Miquel adéu.

Deceptive Euro: A couple of the other kids in my program and I were talking about this, and it dawned on me just how it's possible to spend so much money while living in Europe! Really, if we break this down, there are two key issues: The first is that everything here is PRICED exactly the same as in the States.. which lulls you into thinking that todo está bien until after you've bought the apple/plane ticket/beer and realize that you really paid 30% MORE in value than what you had intended.. The second problem is that the lowest paper bill for the Euro is the 5 € note. Why is that a problem? Because the 1 and 2 € currency is in COIN form, so - to the unsuspecting American - it feels like you're just throwing around a couple of quarters to buy something when you're actually throwing around $3-4! Compound that phenomenon several times a day, and you've got one very poor study abroad student. As one of the girls in my program astutely noted, it was a brilliant move by the EU to continually stimulate the economy, because the high-value coinage causes people to spend money without thinking about it.

Spanish skillz: Definitely improving.. I already feel more confident when I talk, and while I've still got a long way to go, it's great to see results in the early going. Unfortunately, I still speak a lot of English with the other American students here, but I'm hoping that when classes legit start this week, I'll be exposed to more and more Spanish.

Course selection - Total Disaster. E-mails, schedules, approval, non-existent syllabi & catalán flying everywhere. It's like me vs. the Spanish higher education system in a UFC cage fight to the death. Will keep you posted on the outcome.

Church and Bible study have been great! I'm starting to feel at home at the International Church of Barcelona.. The congregation is made up of a really diverse group of people from all over Europe and the world. I've already met Christians from China, Germany, Holland, Ghana, the UK, the US, Ecuador, Nigeria, India, Switzerland, the Philippines, and - of course - Spain in my short time with the church. Everyone is united by a love for Christ, and it's been so amazing to really see the disciples from "every tribe and language and people and nation." God was really faithful in plugging me into a community of believers right away, and I'm so grateful for that.

Finally, a good buddy of mine, Paul Rudatsikira, just produced a short film called The Poor Rich Ruler - check it out if you're interested.

Bueno, time to wrap up for tonight.. Can't believe it's been 3.5 weeks already!

¡Qué Locura! - 3

Thanks for checking out my third Barca update.. Much of this week's post is a tribute to the locura, or madness, that is inherent to the Spanish way of life. Anyone who has spent time in the country will know what I'm talking about - the incomprehensible logistics, rampant inefficiencies, 10-minutes-late-is-on-time unwritten rule, and no pasa nada attitude are alternately endearing and infuriating.

A good example:

Spanish way to obtain FC Barcelona soccer tickets - Buy tickets online. Receive friendly confirmation e-mail giving 20 pick-up locations specially designed for the sake of conveniencia. 20 supermarkets and businesses are scattered around the city, and confirmation gives specific instructions to NOT go to stadium to pick up tickets. Go to local supermercado - closest of 20 sites - 15 minutes away. Find that it is Catalan Independence Day and entire mall is closed. Mental note: on festival days, expectation is to sit at home and celebrate with beer, paella, and flag-waving. Hop into cab to go to any other of 19 spots to pick up tickets. Friendly taxi driver tells you they are all closed as well. Decry locura of country and wonder how 100,000 other fans will get their tickets. Ask taxidriver to instead drive to Camp Nou stadium on other side of city. Arrive to find that confirmation e-mail was wrong and tickets CAN be picked up at stadium. Relief, albeit at the cost of significant toll of stress and sweat.

U.S. way to obtain… Well, I was going to say you just print the tickets from the website, but it's irrelevant because we don't have F.C. Barca in our country. I guess beggars can't be choosers.

ANYWAY, we finally got our tickets and enjoyed amazing seats 20 yards from the pitch for only 50 €. The stadium and atmosphere were incredible, and the energy of the fans was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Camp Nou is the second biggest soccer stadium in the world (only Brazil's legendary Maracaná is bigger) and it's wild to be a part of the soccer craziness.. Basically everything was amazing except for the game itself. Barca - unbelievably - lost to Hercules, a 33-1 underdog coming into the game! Barca dominated possession and created some good chances, but overall the team wasn't clicking like it normally does, and Hercules played their game plan to perfection.. Their packed-in defense and opportunistic forays forward propelled them to the 2-0 result. Even so, I loved the experience and can't wait to be back and see Barca at their best. Check out pic:

Course selection is a bit of a nightmare right now.. I'm trying to navigate Catalan schedules from 3 universities to fit in a few Princeton requirements while here. The locura I mentioned before definitely applies to the universities as well! The expectation is that you go and talk to the professors to work out any problems you have, but basic information (like professor names, e-mails, classroom assignments, course times & dates) are nowhere near as easily available as in the U.S. You practically have to drag the information out of the system, and that's with all the help and guidance we're getting from our CASB program directors! Keeping my fingers crossed that some courses will fall into place this coming week..

Finally, I got to see Parque Güell today.. The park is a mind-boggling architectural and artistic display by Barcelona's famous Antoni Gaudí. Among other features, Guell is famous for its dragon and lizard sculptures, the long serpentine bench that wraps around the park, and its hidden motifs that allude to Catalan nationalism. The park also has INCREDIBLE vistas of Barcelona that make you realize how enormous the city really is. Sitting in the shade near one of Gaudí's striking architectural achievements, listening to mellow music played by the nearby performer, digesting a meal.. was a major highlight of the day. Also saw Gaudí's La Pedrera this past week.. The rooftop in particular is ridiculously nice! The chimneys on top of the building inspired George Lucas in his creation of Darth Vader's mask and the Death Star's guards in Star Wars.. Wild!

That's it for now - stay tuned and stay classy.