* ~ * La Mercé * ~ *

This weekend was the celebration of la Mercé, or the saint of Mercy. The legend goes that some summer about 400 years ago the city was plagued by locusts and everyone prayed to Mercé to help them. The plague ended, so every end of September they celebrate the saint and the end of summer with a holiday and a weekend-long festival with tonnnns of events. Most of the concerts and stuff go until like 5am. There was a circus in the park, more than 4 huge concert stages(including an MTV stage) at the forum, fireworks every night, concerts and events in almost every plaza(and there are a ton of plazas), parades, special events, and hooray-the metro was open nonstop all weekend.

El Correfoc(Fire Run)

I had no idea what to expect. All we knew was that devils run around and shoot fireworks at you and you have to cover your hair and wear long sleeves. That is, if you plan to be in the front row. I didn’t plan to be in the front row..however, of course, we were all right there in it. At first there were a bunch of us sitting up on a big scaffolding but some policia came along and kicked us off. The street was hella crowded. So the firework-devil people(they were really just giant sparklers) came along in waves, followed by drummers. There were also some giant dragons that ‘breathed’ sparks and flames, wheeled all around in circles and down the street. It was actually really fun. And scary, and hilarious.

*El Correfoc Photos

*Correfoc Video

Las Castellers (Castle-Builders)

There were teams from all over the country coming to compete in this competition. It happened in la Plaza St Jaume, which was of course absolutely packed. We didn’t really know where to look, until over in the crowd we saw a big mountain of people forming. After another minute or so, on top of that was a carefully constructed tower, with adults on the bottom and itty bittys on the very top. They all wore some kind of wraps around their waists, which were for each other to use to step on and climb up with. As soon as they got about halfway built, a little band nearby would play some simple drums and horns. Once they finished, people would just kindof take turns sliding down each other to the bottom. One of the towers was right next to us, you could see the people at the bottom shaking towards the end. It was intense. We saw about 3 towers total, however I think there were more after we left. People here are crazy. But the teamwork and the practice and all that goes into that is amazing.

*Castellers Photos

*Castellers Video 1 Video 2

Birthday Celebrations

Lexi’s birthday was sept 17. Luisa’s birthday(as we just happened to find out after a neighbor got on her case about water pipes and she started crying..aww) was a couple days later. She said we’d celebrate them both Sunday, so we did. After we showered and were both still in pajama-ish clothing, Luisa took us to a little pastellería to pick out a cake. We got one with a chocolate village on top.. complete with a little clown. And trees, and a couple people. And mushrooms.

Luisa made us paella for lunch, and then we had some cake and cava(the Spanish champagne). She also got candles, 71 for Luisa and 20 for Lexi. It was adorable.

*La torta de la mejor calidad & Lunch Photos

Giants Parade

For some reason here they really like big giants. There was a parade of them, which I didn't get many good pictures of. But here they are. And a few of us at Rambla del Mar with the italians and our roses.

*Giants Photos

*Giants Video

Hilariousness in the Plaza Catalunya station:

*An extra, for Dustin, or any Mitch Hedberg fan I suppose