Way Behind, yet again (Parents visit and La Merce)

Hello again! Happy second night of Hanukkah!

So, we're a bit behind, as you can see. We only have 16 days left here in Barcelona, but we figured it would be as good a time as any to catch y'all up a bit on what's been going on...starting with the end of September!

So we got back from our Oktoberfest shenanigans, my parents (lisa and jay) were in Barcelona! We did allll the touristy sights with them, from the Olympic museum to the Picasso Museum to eating paella and other delicious tapas and patatas bravas (potatoes with mayo and spicy sauce, one of our favorite spanish foods) and Parc Guell and of course, had a very long, long-distance call to Josh! We loved having them here, not only for the wonderful food.

The last day that my parents were here, Friday, La Merce, the cultural festival here in Barcelona began, so that night we were able to see the beginning fireworks with them! They were really pretty fireworks over the water near the beach and harbor, and we sat on the lovely, slightly polluted harbor to watch them.  It was a really fun ending to their trip!

The rest of La Merce was absolutely crazy.  The cultural events were very different from the type of cultural events that we have in the United States.  It started with huge parades of HUUUGE puppets the size of trucks of kings, queens and jokers. The next night was the Correfoc, which is "fire parade" in Catalan.  And it was exactly what it sounded like.  Tons of people gathered around the beginning of the parade at these two large gates called "the gates of hell" where people began filing out with FLAMETORCHES and fireworks.  We were literally five feet away from people shooting sparks everywhere, including into the crowd.  Catalan people actually dance underneath the flames, so we guessed we were safe standing in the crowd? It was an incredible thing to see- strange because it would NEVER happen in the states.  Correfoc would definitely equal tons and tons of lawsuits and possibly a riot or two.  The next day, we saw another strange yet incredible cultural event- the Castellers.  The Castellers are basically human tower builders- literally they build towers out of humans.  The base is comprised of about 100 catalan people, then the other layers (up to 5) are made up of four people each.  The fifth layer wayyyy on the top (about three stories high) are two children who climb all the way up (wearing helmets because two years ago a little girl died) and signal that the Castell is complete.  It was completely crazy to see such a huge structure being built by humans, especially because it was so successful!

La Merce also had crazy concerts happening in Plazas all around the city, so we happened upon a bunch of awesome concerts.  We also went with all the Spanish kids in our dorm to a techno-ish concert, where we danced in a huge forum area.  It was so interesting to see how the spanish people dance at concerts- definitely different than american concerts.  Our dance moves, aka the cabbage patch and the running man, were huuuuge hits. obviously.

MORE TO COME SOOOOON! (we promise actually soon this time. not two months later time...)

pictures above- fire parade GIANT sparks, castell building and little kids castell group