FC Barcelona vs. RCD Mallorca

October 3rd was the Barca vs. Mallorca futbol game. I know nothing about futbol but I love football and it's basically the same atmosphere so I was excited for he game. The metro was SO crowded but at least we knew exactly where to go. Follow the Barca jerseys. Walking to the stadium was like a Bears game; merchandise vendors, someone selling peanuts, and massive crowds. Getting in was nothing like the Soldier's Field. I accidentally walked past the bag search? and then proceeded to climb roughly a million stairs. With all the stairs in Europe you would think my body would be used to it--nope. We get to out seats--first row of the highest section. We could see the whole field but we were at a corner of one of the goals. I'm sure it was the North endzone :) After they do the National anthem (with constant cheering), the whole stadium gets silent and they pay tribute to an old player. It's the quietest and most still the stadium ever was. Then as always began the cheers. "Barca!...Barca!....Barca!..." And then Messi scored the first goal of the night and the cheers changed to "Messi!....Messi!....Messi!..." Like at a Bears game there is constant cheering. I felt very at home. Mallorca scored a goal too and the game ended up in a tie.  Walking out of the stadium, it was like any other game. Massive amounts of people and slow walking.  The main difference was that I barely saw any blatantly drunk people. It was a lot of families and people maintaining their alcohol. I did miss the bucket boys though.

Also don't forget about all of my pictures that I have been posting at a sharing website.

Here's the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/117888092170327481457/HolyFuckItSBarcelona?authkey=Gv1sRgCK_tjO_vvNi6nAE#

I'll be adding more pictures to it sporadically.

Tarragona!

Alright. Well Barcelona can get a little hectic as you can tell from the strike story so my friend and I decided to spend a day in Tarragona, Spain. It's about an hour and fifteen minute ride out of Barcelona by train and it only cost like 11 euro for a roundtrip ticket.

Tarragona is one of the cities with the most Roman ruins in Catalunya. My friend and I headed to the old part of town where the walled in Roman city sits. It's very similar to the Barri Gotic neighborhood in Barcelona, which is the original Roman city of Barcelona. So it was similar to Barcelona except more Catalan pride and surprisingly more street art. Roman walls and a massive cathedral are still standing in this Roman city. We didn't go into any of the Cathedrals or history/anthropology museums. We were only there for one day plus we wanted to see the ampitheatre. Tarragona has a massive Roman ampitheatre, right near the coast. So if you stand at the top edge of the ampitheatre all you see is the Mediterrian Sea. Sitting there I had another one of those moments where it's like wait how old is this? And I'm actually sitting here? The massiveness of history and the insignificance of human beings in relation to it.

After wandering the walled city and aweing at the ampitheatre. We found a little cafe for some cafe con leche. As we were ordering, the woman working there started speaking to us in English. That rarely happens in Barcelona and definitely not in a small town an hour out of Barcelona. She then proceeded to tell us how they normally never get Americans in Tarragona. She also explained how the government there will pay for anyone to take any language classes a citizen wants excluding Spanish or Castilean Spanish. Catalan is widely spoken in the region of Catalunya so much so that if you speak Spanish they wont respond to you. I think it's interesting too because he government won't pay to learn Spanish, but there is such a mix of people who don't agree with the growing Catalan language. Most people think that since its spoken is such limited areas its not worth preserving and growning. Even the woman at the cafe was skeptical then she convinced us to buy an amazing burger. It was delicious. Tarragona was beautiful too, of course.

The Strike.

 September 29th in Spain is basically a National Strike Day for the unions. Everything closes on this day; shops, resturants, schools, and public transit. All of my teachers at school said to be careful and not to leave our apartments. Most people I know didn't go anywhere just because they need public transit to get around and taking a taxi was dangerous. I don't need any of those things. I can walk anywhere in the city, mas o menys. I slept in and did laundry so by the time my friends made it walking to my apartment, I had assumed everything was over. This was at like 5 pm. So we just sat in a park and talked. We actually ended up meeting these really nice Eygptian girls who kept asking us to take their pictures. We all ending up going to dinner and they were all convincing us to go to Egypt and we were all convincing them to go to Chicago.

Not until the next morning did I hear anything about the strike. In my first class, my teacher showed us the news clip from it. Apparently it all started around 6 pm at the plaza right outside of my school, Placa Catalunya. Things got really intense with massive burnings (cop cars and garbage), tear gas, and rubber bullets. Not only was there a rally for the union strikes, but there was also a hostage situation. About 300 anarchists took over and began living in a back at the other end of the placa. They had been living in there for the past 3 days. The police decided to evacuate all of these people during the march. This was a very intense time in Barcelona.

 From my understanding (which is not well because of the whole new to news thing), the unions strike because of the tax distripution. In Spain, the people only pay taxes. They don't pay for schools, healthcare, or most basic living needs. The taxes are high obviously because they are going to all the services, but Spain wants to raise the taxes but not improve the services. One way they want to get more money is through increasing the age of retirement and take the money from the elderly (that's how the Spanish see it--taking money from the elderly). Spanish citizens don't think it's fair to take from the elderly when the richer who can afford higher taxes should pay them. So that's supposedly what the strike was about. I may very easily be wrong. This was the impression I got from my teachers. And while all of this was happening, I was just relaxing in a park. I feel like I missed out on something monumental but at the same time I think it would have been too much.

The pictures above are from my friend Vince who spent all day walking around Placa Catalunya and saw basically everything that happened. I was also going to find the news clip that my teacher showed us, but I can't find it on line. It basically showed all of the conflicts between the police and protesters and it also showed the police car on fire. Most of the newspapers the next morning had the picture of the burning police car as its cover.

La Merce!!

Alright. so Barcelona had it's biggest festival, La Merce, September 23-26th. It celebrates one of the patron saints of Barcelona. The celebration lasts from Thursday evening to Sunday evening. This celebration brings many people to the city of Barcelona. Not only does it include Catalan traditional aspects, but there is also BAM, a free music festival. Belle and Sebastian and Ok Go both played the festival plus many more. On Thursday night, my friends and I went near the beach to watch the fireworks. There was also a little carnival near the beach with a bunch of little vendors selling clothes and jewelry. On Thursday night, we only stayed near the beach, but most of the festivities happened in Placa Jaume in the Barri Gotic neighborhood of Barcelona. It's the area where the old walled in Roman city of Barcino was. On Friday, we went to the Barri Gotic and watched a parade of giants. I dont know the Catalan name for it, but they were kind of creepy only because they were giant people. They were either dressed as royalty or as Catalan peasants. After we saw the parade, we wander around and found a concert, The Morning Benders. I've never heard them but they were pretty good and fun to dance to.

This festival is like nothing in Chicago or the States at all. There was soemthing going on in every single part of the city. no exaggeration. On Saturday afternoon, we wandered Barri Gotic. There was a lot of street music over there. I saw two guys playing three hang drums. Hang drums are something I've learned about since I've gotten here. A hang drum is a precussion instrument that is made into an elliptical shape and makes a beautiful noise. They are also ridiculously impossible to purchase. In order to obtain a hang drum, on needs to write a letter to the producer of the hang drums in Switzerland and then you get a response and hoopefully a hang drum. You need written permission to own one basically. They are custom made and incredibly expensive. These guys had four. Kind of intense.  

Alright. Now wandering back towards the direction of my apartment we ran into a parade, of course. This parade consisted of groups of drummers from some of the regions in Catalunya. They were amazing and definitely nothing like a high school marching band. They wear fun cozy pants, bang on their drums, and dance along to the beats. So cool. I saw them at the other parade too. They might be one of my favorite things.

This drumming parade was only the beginning to the Fire Run. Now the Fire Run is something that could never ever happen in the States. um. so the streets were full of Barcelona city workers and tons of hoses. That should be a sign. People dress up as beasts and dragons and escape out of the gates of hell a d chase you, spraying fireworks everywhere. Now you can chose to participate or not. Participating includes running under and being attached by fireworks. I am a wuss. Oddly enough, I opted out of getting burned. But don't worry every single child around me was bundled and covered getting dragged by their parent/guardian under fire. European children are clearly more badass than I am?



This event ended my La Merce experiences. Ssadly I missed probably one of the most intense events, human towers. People stand on one another to form human towers. I didn't go to it but I'm assuming it was very stressful.

For reference: None of this pictures are mine. And if you want to see the fire run or the human towers, I would youtube: La Merce-Correfoc for the fire run and Castellers La Merce 2010 for the human towers. I would have posted links but my computer was too slow to watch any of the videos. Sorry! Check it out though. 

Pyrenees!

Disclaimer: Clearly I am awful at posting things in a timely manner. The next six posts did not just happen but instead they span from September 17 until yesterday October 3. Lo siento (I'm sorry)

I may have spoken too soon when I said it's always sunny in Barcelona. The morning that I went to the Pyrenees it was pouring rain. Not a fun walk to the metro. It was good to leave rainy Barcelona for a beautiful city, Taull. Taull is a quaint little city four hours out of Barcelona right at the cusp of the Pyrenees Mountains. We stayed in this town for two days and one night. We spent the first day exploring all of Taull.

This is Taull from the top of the bell tower of the church.

Our bed and breakfast was right outside of one of Catalunya's Roman churches. It was small and simple construction. Most of the inside was bare because most of the frescos that were originally on the walls were taken down and now are in the National Museum of Art of Catalunya (MNAC). It was bare but we were able to climb the ladders up the bell tower. It was a little shaky with steep ladders but the views were amazing. There wasn't much of anything open in the town let alone any stores anyway. Instead we just wandered the hilly streets and ended up wandering onto a little trail around a small mountain that Taull was near. It was so gorgeous! The relaxed lifestyle of Taull was very welcomed.

The little trail we found.

The next day we went hiking through the Pyrenees. I don't hike, but I would never pass up beginning in the Pyrenees. The views of all of the mountains was breathtaking. Thankfully we had two Catalan guides leading us around. The mountains are so massive especially in comparison to people. It's really an awe-inspiring experience. We had the options of either going to a higher spot in the mountains or staying by a lake. I stayed by the lake. It was SO nice to be out and near a quiet waterfront. It gave me time to just think and wander around the lake. All and all this Pyrenees trip was a perfect night away from Barcelona.