La Merce Pictures

Castellers - perfectly safe! ;)

Castellers - 5 levels tall!

Castell de Montjuic

On my way up to Montjuic in a cable car (my friend Kelsey is taking the pic)

The Always Drinking Marching Band

La Merce 2010

Hey everyone! It has been quite a crazy week, so I am going to re-cap for you. This weekend was La Merce, Barcelona's largest festival. And I mean BIG! The government sponsors hundreds of free events - concerts, acrobatic performances, parades, fireworks, light shows, you name it!

I have been a busy girl these past few days. So here are some of the highlights:

Fireworks on the beach every night at 10 pm. It was a competition between Canada, France, and Spain. After viewing all 3 shows, I have to say that France took the cake. I was really close to the fireworks, it was like they were falling around us! So beautiful!

On Saturday during the day, my friend Kelsey and I headed up to the Castell de Montjuic. We walked around the whole castle and then sat on the lawn to watch a trapeze artist. We also saw the "Always Drinking Marching Band," who are a comedic marching band group. They were fabulous!

Last night was the Correfoc, the "Fire Run." Ladies and gentleman, we are not in Kansas anymore. The idea here is to pack hundreds of thousands of people into the streets and then these people dressed up as devils parade down the street with sparklers on pitchforks. Lit fireworks. As in, fire sparks are flying everywhere, showering down on everyone! We were recommended to wear cotton pants and long-sleeve shirts and a head covering. I am very glad I did! It was actually pretty frightening, but very fun. And no worries, there are ambulances ready to go and plenty of policemen on the sidelines.

Another cool thing I saw was the lightshow and jugglers at Ciutadella Park. The show was awesome! The jugglers had balls and pins that lit up in different colors, so it looked really neat in the dark.

As far as traditions go, one of the highlights of the event is the Castellers (human tower builders). These troups form awesome tower-like structures by climbing up on each other's shoulders.

This morning, I visited the International Church of Barcelona. The service was in English (a bit refreshing i must say) and the people there are quite wonderful. The members come from all different countries and there are a bunch of students from all over the place. We went to a BBQ afterwards at the pastor's home in Les Planes, right in the mountains. Very beautiful!

So that's what has been happening. Check out my pictures above!

The Weird World of Antoni Tapies

I visited the Fundacio de Antoni Tapies this afternoon in my long 3-hour break between classes. My synopsis: I am not sure if this dude is completely sane. As far as I could see, he is obsessed with the following:

1.crosses (of the square Red-Cross-esque variety)

2. numbers, particularly 1,2,3,4, and fractions

3. dirt

4. wooden doors

The art is extremely modern and abstract, some of it quite disturbing. There were several (clearly influenced by Eastern thought) which I found to be a bit frightening actually. There were two works which I thought were really interesting. One was an armoire with all of these clothes in it. Kinda hard to explain, but you can easily find a picture on Google.

The other I thought was fabulous. At first, it looked like just a splotch of light yellow surrounded by some strokes of white along with a random closed eye. But as you looked at it, you realized that the yellow was actually the shape of a person and the closed eye belongs to the person and the white was a structure of a chair. All of the sudden, you had this image of a rotund old gentleman who had just dozed off in his garden chair. Very abstract, very cool. I have to say it really was the only painting that I enjoyed looking at.

Continuing on the theme of art, I realize I have not yet posted about the painting & drawing class I am taking. The class is actually taking place at a local art studio/school here in Barcelona. Our teacher, Angel, runs the school with his brother and has his own studio in the city. The school is very cute and artsy and peaceful! We had our second class today where he gave a critique of our attempts to draw a bust of a lady and taught us a very methodological way to draw her. My drawing already looks much better even though it is really just the outline. I think that I am really going to enjoy the class!

Thats it for now...besos!

Some things remain the same...

Weather forecast - torrential downpours of rain...am I in Philadelphia? For the second time since I have been here, it has been raining. But today really took the cake. It was overcast this morning and then at about 6:18 pm, the heavens opened. Praise the Lord that I took my umbrella with me this morning!

Tigre and I had a bit of a tiff this morning. He gets shut in the living room/kitchen area at night so that he doesn't wake anyone up by scratching at doors. This morning, when I got up, he wanted to be let out into the rest of house, but my here-sister Ana, was still sleeping. So I wouldn't let him. Well he jumped right up on my sink and gave me a nice little bite on my hand. I still love him though, I can't help it. :)

Since I am assuming you don't want to hear about my homework, here are some pictures.

This cool street is in the hip neighborhood of Gracia

Casa Vicens by Gaudi - a lot of tourists don't see this one; it is one of his earliest works

I took this pic while waiting for the rain to slow down a bit, only about 3 doors down from my house. I gave up eventually and just made a run for it!

"Puding" from the restaurant Allenda - it tasted like flan, but better. :)

Yom Kippur

As you may know, yesterday was Yom Kippur. I found a synagogue group here called "Atid" and attended their services on Friday night, Sat morning, and Sat night. The group is technically Reformed, but is actually fairly mixed. As Pamela, one of the girls I met, explained to me, the Jewish community here is so small, they cannot afford the separations that we have in the U.S. In my Catalunya culture class, we learned that only 1/33,000 people in Spain are Jewish! This is so different for me coming from Philadelphia, where the Jewish population is quite large. The community here is really struggling to uphold the Jewish tradition in Spain. I knew that the Inquisition had a significant impact, but I did not realize how much it really destroyed the Jewish life here even to this day. But anyway, I met a lot of really nice people and they kindly invited me out to their college/career age break fast. It was a bit tough to be surrounded by so much Spanish for so many hours, but I managed okay. Typical to Spaniard style, the dinner went til 1:00 am and then we all moved to a bar. I came home at about 2:30 (everyone asked me why I was leaving so early!).

I have a MOUNTAIN of homework to do today, so that will occupy the rest of my day.

Besos!

Running all over creation

Today, I had two classes and I ran around a bunch to get supplies. I bought some books for class and folders and such. Oh, for lunch, we went to this place Antella and got their plat del dia. I had fish with salad and rice, a bottle of water, and pudding for dessert. All for 7 euro, which is pretty good. It was excellent and the waiter was fabulous! He was quite charismatic and friendly (very unusual for waiters here in Spain).

I also had to go to the art supply store to get some things for class. Of course, I got lost. (So what else is new!) I ended up walking about 5 blocks more than necessary which seems to be par for the course around here, at least for someone as directionally challenged as me! But, I am excited about this art class. It is actually taking place at a local artist's school owned by a man named Angel and his brother. So, its a legit painting/drawing studio class. How awesome!!!

Alrighty, I got a lot to do - recording all my purchases from today and doing a little bit of homework.

Besos!

The other half of the schedule

(Picture to the left - University of Barcelona, Main Building)

My Tuesday/Thursday schedule is quite busier than my Monday/Wednesday schedule. I have three classes in the earlier part of the day - from 9:30 am to 2:45 pm. Then I have a long break until my last class from 6-7:30 pm. It's quite a long day, but I am sure I will soon have enough homework to fill that long break. So I am not complaining.

I suppose these posts will get quite a bit more boring as I become more involved with actual schoolwork. Hopefully, I will continue to notice differences and do interesting things, at least on the weekend!

Now, remember how I told you that this past Sunday I took a walk around my neighborhood? I thought I would share some of those pictures with you. I am also going to throw in some of the Univ of Barcelona. Warning for my Drexel peeps - Look at these pictures at your own risk of extreme dissatisfaction of the lack of beauty on our campus.

Besos!

Cute little park nearby my metro stop

View of my street at dusk

University of Barcelona Center for Hispanic Studies - this courtyard is actually inside the building. Meaning that I can study here!

This is a similar courtyard that is inside the UB main building

Entrance to Center for Hispanic Studies