Probably the most interesting I have to write about is the Festival of Santa Eulalia that I attended on Sunday.
I'm hoping you have already read my post from Tarragona explaining what castells are and how cool I think they are. Because that's what I got to see in real life. Castells. Refresher: castells are human castles that the Catalan people like to build. It's only a Catalan thing so I guess that makes it pretty special. There are different castell clubs from all around Barcelona so all of these clubs came to the festival to build some human castles. At first, each club built a 1x4, so basically just 4 people standing on each other. With a little kid on top...so crazy. Take a gander:
And then they walked. Across the plaza. That little kid on top is exponentially cooler than I could ever hope to be.
After each team built their 1x4 and walked to the center of the plaza, castells were going up like crazy. Everywhere I looked there were different formations going up. The only way I can describe this experience was sensory overload. How can I take that many pictures?
Where the heck was I supposed to look?!?! I could honestly spend hours watching these people. It is so amazing how strong and committed you have to be to make castells successful. Yeah, cheerleading is hard but look at those guys that are on the second tier...they are not small. It is so impressive. One more thing that I thought was incredibly impressive, especially as a former athlete, the teamwork between the separate teams. A number of times I would look at the base of castell and see red, blue, green, gray shirts. It didn't matter what team they were on, they were all working together to help this specific castell work. Here is an example:
Here you can see the red team and the purple team helping the teal team. Also, you can see spectators (the spectator in the olive fleece just so happens to be Bo) helping the castell. Everyone helps. Also now would be a good time to mention that they don't even formally compete. It's more or less a showcase of their talents. I would say seeing a castell go up has to be one of the coolest things I will do in Barcelona. You don't get this back in the States, folks. Here is a completed castell...so cool:
Another interesting part of the festival was something called Correfoc. Which I think translates from Catalan to "fire run". This is basically a parade where little kids come out in fire-proof outfits and twirl really giant sparklers.
Then there was the dragon...
So, there you have it. I'm basically a Catalan. I'm just working on my "In...depe...independencia!" chant.
Other than, my week was boring and full of school. We are looking into planning a trip to Morocco, so that's fun! Definitely something different. I also really want to ride a camel. This weekend I'm going to Prague with some gal pals and that will be a blast I'm super excited! I've only heard great things about that place!
Quick birthday shoutout to Noreen, literally counting down the days until you come to Barcelona!!
Also here's a Valentine's shoutout to Bobby. Hey.
Angela
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