¡La Mercé!

This past weekend was La Mercé, a huge city-wide festival to celebrate the patron saint of Barcelona. The whole city prepares for a giant party. Every important plaza (at least 10) sets up a stage and has tons of free music each day. There are also cultural events that happen like Correfoc, Xambanga de Gegants, building towers of humans and cultural dances. There are at least two huge carnivals set up in the city and fireworks every night at the beach. This goes on for four days. I was really impressed.

The first night of La Mercé I saw Sage Francis, this hip-hop man from Rhode Island. He had a good sense of humor and sang to the beat of NIN's "Closer". I don't really understand what makes hip-hop artists good or not. His lyrics kept my attention. For being so illiterate of the art...I found it to be enjoyable. Though he made a mistake when he decided to disrespect mullets. Angry Euro mullets threw beer cans at him. After the concert I split off from the group to explore with Viktoriya. We hung around in Plaça Cataluñya and got lost in a crowd of pot-smoking hippies dancing to the music coming from the stage. That quickly became annoying as a guy with an extraordinarily large backpack kept bumping me. Next we walked to Plaça Jaume I, close to my house where all of the government buildings are. There was Celtic music playing. Eh. We decided to try absinthe. I was worried but had been reassured it's not as strong as they used to make it. In reality, it tasted like horrible medicine and strung my throat almost to the point of nausea. The effect was similar to 1-2 shots of vodka. We boarded the Metro and headed to El Forum. El Forum is this huge venue/port/outdoorsy area on the far east side of the city. It seemed more youthful and rowdy than some of the other places. As soon as we came up from the Metro station I could see hundreds of people and started imagining how easily a riot could occur. At the actual place there were thousands of people. It was like a small music festival with three stages, from where I was standing it looked very much like Austin City Limits Festival because of the ridiculous crowds. In another part of El Forum there was a carnival set up and all of the rides were amplified X100 compared to the US. The ferris wheel went faster, bumper cars bumped harder, the scary rides went higher and rotated more. There were so rides I'd never seen in the US like the giant disk with about 30 people hanging on to the edges. One person would be pushed in the middle and forced to dance. Except the whole disk was shaking and spinning so hard that most people could stand up. They end up piled on top of one another in the middle. It actually looked fun.

Saturday night we went to Correfoc. This is a parade where people dressed as devils carry huge metal poles that shoot sparks in every direction. There are also monsters that shoot flame and sparks out of their mouth. There were warnings to not wear nice clothes to the event because it is possible to get burned. We joked that such a thing would never be allowed in America because of liability issues. There wasn't even a very defined parade route, the devils and monsters just made their way through the crowd. We were all screaming and trying to seek refuge under my scarf. I wasn't burned, but definitely had to run out of the way a few times.

After the parade we headed to the beach for the nightly fireworks show and were only able to see the end. On our way back to the city center we found one of the bestias from Correfoc. We quickly made friends with the devil in charge and took pictures. Then we continued our initial quest for a bocadillo. We ate and watched part of a fútbol game with some Spaniards. In our frenzy my friends forgot to pay and were scolded. We were close to the apartment so we stopped by...I can't remember why.

We left again to see what was happening at Plaça Cataluñya. It was dead because it was too late. We met more people. Guys working in a gelato store, a man with a weapon who fed my friend pastry, a group of kids from Barcelona...everyone advised us to go back to El Forum. I wasn't sure I wanted to go all the way there. Especially since my companions were more inebriated and had never been there before. I didn't want the responsibility of two other crazies, besides my crazy self, but I didn't care enough to protest. It didn't matter anyway. As soon as we arrived at El Forum we took a siesta in the grass. I kept opening my eyes because I was scared of more robbers, but all I noticed were men staring down at us. I suppose a pile of girls would usually attract attention. We later bought food: hot dog, French fries, churros and cotton candy. Churros are SO delicious. I don't know how I ate them so fast without barfing. My friends wasted money on games, made friends, wasted their money on games and won a huge stuffed sun. We had to escape the new "friends" and went to go look at the crazy rides. On the Metro ride back I somehow gave off an appearance of having strong arms. I drank some tepid Coke and wished it was colder. Then we all got home and went to bed in the morning.

By the third day of La Mercé I am losing steam. I meet with friends to see the parading giants enter the governmental plaza close to home.

I feel so glad for living so close to the action. We drink champagne in the plaza at our house. It was initially reserved for watching the sunrise at the beach, but sleep kept seeming more important. We walked to the beach for another concert. Someone started crying, someone else was mad about something. People become too emotional. I talked with Viktoriya and we decided to leave for gelato and a club in another part of town. We had the GREATEST gelato. A mix of crema catalana (like creme brulee) and hazelnut. We hopped on the Metro and it shorted out one stop away from where we were going. We walked the rest of the way to the club, KGB. It was disappointingly uncrowded, maybe because entrance was free until 3AM. After 3 it became more crowded. We danced around. Viktoriya admired the DJ! :) I spent a while talking to someone from Barcelona, always trying to get advice about the city and make friends who aren't American. I got home by 6AM and stayed up too late connecting with a piece of home via AIM. At the time I started to fall asleep, just before 9AM, I heard parades starting for the last day of La Mercé. Luckily my exhaustion enabled me to pass out with ease. I slept too late and missed meeting Viktoriya at 11:30AM for the tower of humans. I'd really wanted to see it, but could not manage to get out of bed. I slept until the afternoon, lazed around and eventually went out with Megumi for a bocadillo. It was so amazing! Spanish tortilla with potatoes on a baguette! I don't think I'll ever eat sandwiches in the same way again once I go back home. That night we went to Plaça de Españya for the final fireworks show. They were some of the best fireworks I've ever seen in my life! Types of fireworks I've never known before to really good music. All American music, strangely enough. That night I stayed at home for sleep. Though I couldn't because I'd become accustomed to falling asleep in the early morning. Megumi and I stayed up and raided the bare kitchen and watched people from the balcony. We fell asleep to the sounds of Anna yelling at the horrible neighbor upstairs because of his blasting music at 3AM.