Another great Catalan adventure involved setting up my online login. You're all probably sick of hearing about admin, but I think the fact I've done 86% of this in Catalan is hilarious. I had to pick a security question, which although I can usually guess what Catalan means, these questions might as well have been in Chinese. So I chose one at random and gave a random answer. Now to remember which one I chose...
We had a small break from sweltering humidity this week in Barcelona. My beach day was replaced with reading children's books in Spanish with my 36 year old Japanese roommate. Blessings come in all forms. We also witnessed a real life police crime scene investigation across the plaza from our apartment. Either that or the filming of the next Law and Order. Policemen with gloves and cameras. The real deal. But we'll never know why because the windows are now completely boarded up.
This week was another major Catalunyan festival. Or maybe just Barcelonian. La Merce. I think it's for the patron saint of Barcelona. Which is odd because only 1% of the festivities (a closing mass) had anything to do with her, and the other 99% were just giant moments of celebration.The Barcelona/Catalunya orchestra gave a free concert in the park in the middle of a giant downpour. Really cool to listen to a symphony and stare at four hundred umbrellas. Probably my favorite part of the festival was Wednesday. We went to Plaza Sant Jaume and watched a bunch of people in giant costumes bob up and down together. Each barrio got a pair of giants. This was followed by las castells. Think human pyramid except not on your hands and knees and not something any American can do. They started with just stacking four people standing on each other's shoulders. And I thought that was crazy. Until the towers started running across the square. And then started growing until at least seventy people were involved in each one, and each layer had multiple people. It's really something else to see tiny baby five year old girls climb up the human towers and then slide back down the humans. I don't think I would have been able to take it seriously if eighteen hands were grabbing my butt all at the same time. But maybe that's part of the thrill.
La Merce also meant several of the sights around the city had free admission. I accidentally walked 22 kilometers one day to go visit castle Montjuic. I planned to eventually get on the metro but that obvi never happened. The castle wasn't the most spectacular of castles I've been to, but it had a glorious view of Barcelona and a rather twisted history of fighting for ownership with the Spanish government. Barcelona didn't actually get to keep the castle until 2007, and as late as the 60s people were still being tortured and executed inside. I didn't know these things existed outside of the Medieval era. Shows what I know about the world.
The whole festival finished Wednesday night with the most spectacular fireworks show and largest crowd of my entire life. A giant screen was set up in Plaza de Espana and they broadcasted a 45 minute documentary detailing the history in Barcelona (I only understood like 36% since it was in Catalan) and exposing the region's cultural identity, all the while having fireworks exploding in theme. In theme. Like soundtracks do for movies. It was amazing, but also meant I got four hours of sleep for class today and really struggled.
My Japanese roommate discovered the month of November this week. She was more excited than children waiting for Santa. She still struggles to understand full conversations, but her sudden exclamation of the one word she gets always kills me. I also discovered a market right by my house that was created for me. It's perfection in every way in that it sells everything I adore and is a haven for treasure hunting and everything costs less than 3 euros. Probably haggling for my paella pan and my 2015 wardrobe here.
Maybe it's because I haven't met many English speakers so the only English I hear is in my head or maybe it's because I'm fast approaching graduation and being thrown out into unwanted responsibility or maybe it's because I'm in Europe and writing a blog, but I spend a lot of time reflecting on everything here, something I haven't done in years. At home my life feels far too fast paced to waste any time just sitting and thinking, but here I'm loving being able to take a moment to freeze a memory in my brain or to smile at why something is so different or to appreciate the beauty of humans. Just being thankful for the many many ways the Lord has blessed me and kept his hand in every part of this sabbatical.
One final thought to leave you with.
The metro is home to endless photo booths. This is apparently the method of choice for passport photos. I'm sorely tempted to climb into one of these and create an updated version of my 2012 Glam Shot from China. That might be my next post.
xoxo.
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