Gaudi and More Strange Customs

So, a couple of weeks ago i finally went to see the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell, two of the major Gaudi works in Barcelona. They were cool, but i have to say i don't really understand what all the fuss is about. I like the Palau de la Musica much better, which is a modernist work, but isn't even by Gaudi. I didn't go in the Sagrada Familia, because it costs 10€! The Sagrada Familia is famously perpetually under construction, despite Gaudi's death in the 20s. The front is the newer part, and is much different than the back. It's been criticized as not being in keeping with Gaudi's vision. I walked through Park Guell, took advantage of the open space to play with my poi, talked to some jewelry-makers (i got a stunning handmade amethyst bracelet for 10€, much more worth it than going into the Sagrada Familia). I didn't stay there long, though, the tourists were kind of overwhelming. It's on top of a hill (a REALLY BIG hill), so the view was spectacular.



Then i spent the rest of the day at the beach.

Last weekend was Barcelona's celebration of La Merce, which is different than what i went to in Tarragona, which was not actually La Merce, just Catalunya's national day. La Merce is the festival in honor of the Virgin of Mercy, who supposedly saved the city from a plague of locusts once upon a time. The legend is more complicated than that, but i can't remember it all. Anyway, the whole city celebrates with free concerts and parades and such all weekend. Also, everyone gets drunk. Walking around that night, it was like being in college on a Friday night, except instead of just the campus, it was the whole city. It was pretty amazing. I went to see two amazing DJs spin at an open-air venue near the sea, as well as seeing the Carrefoc parade, which is basically a bunch of people in devil costumes running around with fireworks. Seriously. What that has to do with the Virgin of Mercy, i can't quite comprehend.



I LOVE living in Barcelona. I love riding the metro, i love the buildings, i love the sea, the market, the people in the street, speaking Spanish and getting better at it. I love my classes and my studio and the tutors. My classmates are great. I discovered an incredible area of the city yesterday, and i know there are more that i'll find. I think that if my framily was here with me, i'd just be happy as a clam to stay for a while. Though, if Sarah Palin ends up president of the United States... well, this isn't a political blog.

So that's basically what i've been up to, other than joining a gym, where i'm swimming and taking capoeira classes. Of course, i've also been busy in the studio, progressing with the paper dolls and moving in a new direction with them as of today! But that's for the next post. Happy Friday!

Castells, Torres, y Pilares

(Castles, Towers, and Pillars)

Mid-September in Barcelona sees the Festiu de la Mercè, Festival of Saint Mary of Mercy, Catalonia's "national day" - like Independence Day, except Catalonia isn't independent. So we have a four-day weekend from school. I decided to go to Tarragona, which is a short train ride south of Barcelona. It's a Roman city, with relatively intact ruins and beautiful, less crowded beaches. I spent most of the day checking out the ruins and swimming. The ruins were nice, but not much once you've seen the Pont du Gard and Le Temple de Diane and the arena (and so on...) in Nimes, France. The beach was indeed lovely, i hiked out to a sparsely populated small beach hidden between two cliffs. I swam for probably three hours, enjoying the bigger waves, the scenery, and losing an earring. A handmade garnet piece i got on the Charles Bridge in Prague, i'm quite sad about it, actually.

After a very late lunch and some sketching, i got to see the "human castles." It's some kind of tradition of building very high towers out of people. It's a little hard to explain, so i took a bunch of pictures!

There are different teams that participate, though it's not a competition and they all seem to help each other. Each one has their own little outfit. The first thing they do is wrap their lower backs with stretchy black cloth. They wrap it very tightly. This has a two-fold purpose - the first is to protect the back, and the second... well, you'll see shortly.



This guy used a neck brace as well:



Then they made a big mass of people. I'm sure there was a very deliberate structure to it, but it wasn't clear to the untrained eye:



It was obvious that they were making kind of a human flying buttress.



Then they started building...









Structural integrity requires a special kind of intimacy in this situation:



Now, even i, with my unpracticed human-tower building skills, could figure out that the bigger, heavier people went on the bottom, and the smaller, lighter ones went on top. What i didn't expect was out little and light the ones on the very top would be:



That little girl is not older than 6!

Here's the second one being built. If you look closely, you can see the second reason for the black bands - footholds!





A third one, with little teeny girls ready to scale to the top:



My favorite part was the beginning of the end. The little ones would climb to the top for just a split second, wave, and then they would shimmy down all the way to the bottom, like they were sliding down a coconut tree. I thought it was incredibly cute, but i can't imagine ever letting my own child do something like that. They must have been up three stories. And one of the towers got quite wobbly at one point!




Today i went to see the Olafur Eliasson exhibit, which i'll write about in my next entry. Tomorrow, the flea market! And possibly La Sagrada Familia, a massive landmark i have yet to see.