This weekend is La Mercè, a festival celebrating the patron saint of Barcelona. Essentially, it's 4 days of all of Barcelona gathering to go to concerts, parades, and party. Friday night, I went out with my group and others. One of the girls looks so much like SJP (but with a better nose) that everytime I talked to her, I kept thinking "You look like Carrie Bradshaw." I'm sure she thought I was retarded. I took a siesta after class and didn't wake up until 10:30 and wasn't going to go but Mark convinced me that I had to stop being standoffish, suck up my pride, and make peace with tagging along. We met for drinks, went to a concert, got beer from McDonald's, and went dancing at La Paloma. It's a 100-year old dance hall that also serves as a nightclub. The architecture inside is amazing but the music less so. Spain being Spain, we arrived around 2 and the place was deserted. It wasn't until we left at 5 that it was actually full.
Saturday, I went shopping and got "exotic" goodies such as peanut butter from the Asian superstore. Can anyone recommend a good book that might be available in Spain? I went to FNAC, a cross between B&N and Best Buy, and it only had airport lit and classics available in English. It's great to have all this time to read but my New Yorker subscription will probably arrive when I leave Spain and all I have right now is a Paul Auster book that I bought yesterday.
Saturday night, we went to see the Correfoc, fire run, that has the following disclaimer: "Warning!The FIRE RUN can be dangerous and you are responsible for your own safety. If you want to run and dance among the devils you are advised to wear clothes which cover your arms and legs to avoid burns. Wearing a hat or headscarf and even special glasses is also recommended. Children watching the spectacle for the first time may be frightened. Please ensure that they are not in the front lines."
It is the craziest thing I have ever seen. The stateside equivalent might be a Halloween parade on New Year's Eve combined with fireworks from the 4th of July. The first picture is before it starts and the second is after. Notice how the people in the latter are running away in fear? That's because it's fucking scary as shit to have fireworks-spewing dragons and people aiming big-ass sparklers directly at you. It is both terrifying and exhilarating and makes you shriek like a child. I was on the front lines and at one point I was crouched as far down as possible on the street, back to the parade, arms covering my head, watching spark fall all around me. And you know what? I still got fucking burned. My camera died so I'll post my roommate's pictures later.
Afterwards, we went for tapas with his classmates and, contrary to Neighborsman's complaint, the portion were huge. For 20 Euro, I had two entrees (tortilla and sausage with beans), pa amb tomàquet, water, half bottle of rose, and shared a caramel-filled crepe. Yum. I also tried some rabbit, which tasted exactly like chicken. Apparently, you can get it here at the butcher's preskinned but with the head attached. Yuck. I always knew that, as an American, I'm removed from my food source but when I went to the fresh market that morning looking to make steak, I realized that I had absolutely no idea what part of the cow was what. I felt so ignorant and lost without a label identifying my shrink wrapped meat. Having said that, however, I miss the capitalist excess (ie, variety) of American sometimes.
I wanted to go to the Castellers, human castle, event today but slept instead. I went to the street parade and saw a photo exhibit on La Mercè 2005. I also saw a multimedia project on postcapitalism that was ambitious (ie, I didn't like it) and cited Wikipedia as a source. If you look at the photo of the parade, you'll notice that Spain doesn't have things like fire codes or barricades or safety measures of any kind.
P.S. I found a porno in the living room today. I wonder who it belongs to? Or is it communal property?
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