PERI: La Mercè!!

   This past weekend was the La Mercé Festival; and also the craziest weekend of my life!!  I will do my very best to describe the madness that all of this weekend had in store.  First of all, La Mercé is the biggest celebration of the year in Barcelona, it is the celebration of the city itself and is a very big source of pride for Catalonians.  Tourists from all over the world come to Barcelona to see the festivities, school everywhere, and even many shops are closed Friday-Sunday to give people a long weekend of partying.  The traditional festivities include: giants of the city (very large puppet-like people that are worn by a single person performing dances to traditional Catalan music in many different events throughout the holiday), Correfoc (fire run where the "devils" of the city run through the streets with fireworks and chase people down, shooting the fireworks "in the air" with sparks falling on spectators (did I mention the majority of these things would be HIGHLY illegal in the states?), castellers (human castle building), lots of concerts throughout the city, and many many more events.

    Thursday night the festivities began at Plaza de Sant Jaume.  Lucky for us, this is one of the main squares where festivities are held and it is literally a three minute walk from our front door!  The opening ceremonies consisted of traditional Catalan music and the introduction of the giants (los gigantes) and the mascots of the city.  Friday was a holiday, and some of the festivities began bright and early in the morning, so Elizabeth  and I woke up early and headed down to the Plaza de Sant Jaume.  The big event of Friday was the catellers, but first even more giants were brought to the square and performed their traditional dances.  By the time the castellers were supposed to perform the square was PACKED: Spaniards, foreigners, babies, old people... everyone was there.  We were squished somewhere in the middle of the plaza, and of course, the festivities run on "Spain time" so everything starts late.  However, the teams did eventually emerge out of a side street and build their "warm-up" towers (a group of people on the ground for support, then a man, woman, and small child all piled on top of each other).  The three teams (all from Barcelona) went on to compete in 3 rounds, each time getting higher and more complex.  It was absolutely incredible to see!  The kids (all about 5-9 years old) are incredibly brave, agile, and fearless!

Giants in Plaza de Sant Jaume

First round of tower building

     That night, we went to see the firework show on the beach; the show was about 20 minutes long and very beautiful, they have different fireworks here than I have ever seen in the states.  After the fireworks, we decided to walk through the park (the same one that we walk through for school, where the large fountain is located).  There were all kinds of things going on there!  The first thing we saw was this amazing lazer-light show, the video I took does it much more justice than the picture, but I felt as though I was in a sci-fi movie!  There were many other strange things going on in the park, so I am glad that we chose to go home that way.

 Lazer!

    Saturday we had most of the day to plan something to do, the major event of the day (Correfoc) was not until 8pm, so Elizabeth and I decided to go to Monjuic, the castle on the hill that overlooks Barcelona.  We rode the metro to the cable cars and then rode those up the hill... it was breathtaking!  We saw EVERYTHING, all the way from the Mediterranean Sea to the outskirts of the city.  It looked so huge and diverse!  You don't see that kind of thing when you are just in the streets.  The castle was beautiful, there were all kinds of circus themed things going on there, unfortunately we did not make it into the circus itself, but it was definitely worth the trip.

    After coming home for a quick siesta, hit the streets for the Fire Run, or Correfoc.  It was insane.  Every year, hundreds of people dress up like devils, and take out big sticks, or pitchforks with humungous sparkler fireworks attached to pinwheel swivels, and walk through the streets and huge crowds of people, spraying them with their fireworks.  Some people feel really brave and stand in the streets with the devils, daring them to chase them (which they do without hesitation, even to people who aren't interested).  We were right up on the street, but figured we would be safe because there were a lot of people on the street in front of us, as well as a large bike-rack separating us from the street.  Well, needless to say, we were not safe there, and ended up about 50 feet further from the street when it was all over.  It was incredible to me though, there were no fire trucks, or policeman, or ambulances to be seen-- even though airborne fireworks as well as the hand held ones were going off in masses of people and between skyscrapers!  

   After Correfoc, we walked back to Sant Jaume Plaza and saw the amazing light show going on there.  3 projectors projected a 3D light show on the building that was PERFECTLY lined up with the building and its features: windows, columns, ornamentation.  It looked like the building itself was fluid and rubber and a screen of its own all at once, it was fantastic!

 All of the features you can see on the building, like the lines around the arches on the bottom floor, are projected.  Notice the windows, how they look like they are warped to the left, in person, you could not see the outlines of the real windows at all!

   Sunday, the final day of the festival, was the day of the big castellers competition!  We got up really early to get a good seat in a cafe that overlooks the square.  When we went out, there was hardly anyone in the square, and we got the exact seat we wanted: by the window, second floor, directly out from where they build.  Over the next hour, the square became JAM PACKED.  I was so happy that we got these seats because we got to sit, we were not in the sun, and we had the perfect view.  The castles that we saw on Friday were NOTHING compared to these!  They went up to 8 and 9 stories tall!  As you can see in the picture, there is a large mass of people on the bottom that you can see, but there is an even larger support layer beneath them, that is mixed in with the crowd.  All in all, I would say there are about 80 people on this team.  Again, there were 3 teams competing, I am not entirely sure where they were from because all of the announcing is done in Catalan which is very different from Spanish to the untrained ear.  This team is one of the non-Barcelona teams, they were very impressive BUT.... the tower just before this one, the small child that tops off the tower FELL from the very top and bounced off people all the way down!  THEN on this tower in the picture, literally seconds after I took this picture, the entire thing COLLAPSED!!!! an 80 person dog pile!!! THANK GOODNESS I got it on video, it was the scariest thing I have ever seen!  The poor mother of that little girl all the way at the top!  I cannot believe that this is an actual sport, but it was amazing to see.

   To finish off the festival, there is a huge fireworks display set to music and choreographed with the fountain at the base of the palace at Plaza de Espanya.  All of the Spaniards come out to watch this event, and obviously so do the tourists so the streets for blocks and blocks were completely full.  It was the most amazing firework display I have ever seen.  They did a fun mix of popular English, and Spanish songs, as well as some Spanish versions of English songs.  We rode the metro home after, and it went surprisingly smoothly.  After getting home Sunday night, I have never been more glad for a weekend to be over.  It was absolutely mind-boggling and great, but so tiring!  The city will feel empty once all of the tourists go home and everyone in the city is not trying to be in the same places at the same times.

All in all, it was a great weekend, the Spaniards sure do know how to get the adrenaline pumping and push the limits on what should be legal!  If you ever get a chance to be in Barcelona for La Mercè, I highly suggest it!