La Huelga and more

If any of you watch international news, you may have seen footage of massive rioting going on in Barcelona yesterday. Yes, I am alive. September 29th was a general strike day and there was quite a lot going on in Placa Catalunya, which I actually walk through almost daily. Our classes were cancelled that day and we were told to keep mostly inside and away from large, boisterous crowds. In reality, most of the car burning, rock throwing, window breaking, and stealing was done by a group here called "Anti-sistema." You got it, they are an active anarchist group in Spain and apparently protest and cause a ruckus at just about any opportunity. According to my history of Catalunya professor, it is not clear exactly what their political platform is. I suppose it is a bit difficult to be a cohesive organized group when you are fighting against structure and organization itself. Anyway, this was apparently one of the more violent strike days that Barcelona has had in the past few years. What did I do? Tons of homework.

And now a quick note about language barriers. Having a good sense of humor is absolutely essential in living with a host family. A few days ago, we all had a good laugh when I stated "Estoy perdiendo pesetas de caminar," attempting to say "I am losing weight from walking." However, the word for "weight" is actually "peso." "Pesetas" are the former Spanish currency that were replaced by the Euro. So I actually said, "I am losing money from walking."...which makes no sense at all! Once we had all laughed about my mistake, I corrected my statement to be "I am losing weight from walking and money from shopping!"

This evening, my host sister Ana pulled out a tub of Betty Crocker chocolate frosting to eat with some cookies. Ana is allergic to milk, and so she bought the frosting in place of chocolate sauce. However, in typical American fashion, the tub had a line that read "May contain traces of milk products." Ana asked me what this meant. Does it have milk in it or not? Ummm...well. See, sometimes, the same machines may have been used to make different products so it might contain the tiniest bit of milk, but probably not. And companies have to put that on there to protect themselves from being sued. This explanation is really helping right? That is correct, I can't tell you for absolute sure whether or not it has milk in it. And yes, Americans are the slightest bit crazy.

I am happy to report that Ana tried it and that she is perfectly fine.

Oh life...

Besos!

Backtrack - Sept 22

I thought I would post something I wrote from Sept 22:

I went to the Museum of Chocolate this morning. Of course, I got lost going there, but I have just

resigned myself to the fact that I will need to ask about a million people for directions whenever I am going to a new place. At least I can understand what they are telling me. I realize that I am used to the more linear street system in Philly as opposed to the more circular one here. Since it is a very old city, it has sections with tiny, tiny spidery streets and it only takes about 5 seconds to get totally off the beaten path.

Once I made it there, the entrance was only 3.85 euro and the entrance ticket is a bar of dark chocolate. Yum! Most of the information about the history of chocolate, I already knew. What was really cool was the chocolate sculptures/creations that they had on display (as pictured above). They had everything! There were some funny things -- a big Easter egg with the pope's face on it and a re-creation of the Pieta. After I was done the exhibit, I went out into the little courtyard they have which sits in between the Museum and the Chocolate Confectionary School that appends the museum. The school's kitchen has glass walls, so you can look at all the students (aka attractive European boys) scurrying about in their chef hats creating various chocolate things. I then sat at the cafe and had a cup of chocolate (of course).

La Merce Pictures

Note: These pictures will be more interesting if you read my post about La Merce first and then look at the picture posts.

Me and two friends at a concert...the stage is that blue glowing thing to the top right.

El Correfoc...it's coming!

Okay, now is the time to start screaming!

(p.s. - they came closer than this, but i decided that taking pictures might put my hand in danger of being burned, so i didn't)

(p.p.s. - there are plenty of Youtube videos of this event, check it out!)

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. :)