The Story
Hola de Espana!
I don't really know when I decided to study abroad or how I chose Barcelona. At some point in the past few years, however, that became the plan. I spent the spring and summer getting ready to leave for Spain, and then all of a sudden it was September and I was at the airport-- packed, ready to go and crying at the security checkpoint.
It had never really occurred to me that I’d actually be living in a foreign city. I was excited, I was nervous, and I had no idea what to expect. For the first week or so, I went through the motions-- going to orientation, figuring out the Metro system, getting used to my apartment. About two weeks after I arrived, I was walking to class and it hit me: I actually live in Barcelona.
Every few days I realize that again: I live in Barcelona-- and I love it. There are so many things that I’ve gotten to do over the past three weeks that have been absolutely incredible. This past week, for instance, was La Mercè, Barcelona’s festival to honor its patron saint.
Mercè, I learned, is a week-long festival where the city is essentially a non-stop party with a few traditional events thrown in here and there. It started on Friday night with a presentation of gegants, huge wooden and paper-mache figures that danced as they told a story (of what, though, I’m not completely sure). There were incredible fireworks almost every night, all of which put a lot of Fourth of July shows I’ve seen to shame.
One of the most traditional-- and by far the coolest, in my opinion-- events of La Mercè was Correfoc, literally “fire-run.” During Correfoc, dragons and animal-shaped gegants have firecrackers and big sparklers attached to them, and as they’re lit, they spray the flames everywhere. Everyone runs along with them and dances in the fire. It’s often described as running with the devils.
The organizers of Mercè advise completely covering your body and head and wearing earplugs. As someone who gets startled very easily (I jump even when I’m expecting a loud noise), I bought earplugs specifically for the occasion-- but when I got to Correfoc, I was so overwhelmed/excited/terrified to run in the fire that I forgot to use them. I did, however, make sure to keep my hood on and scarf around my face as I ran in and out of flying flames.
The other major traditional event of Mercè is Castellers, or human castles. Just about every neighborhood in Barcelona has a Castellers group, and about a dozen people train essentially to climb up each other and make human towers. The top tier or two are always small children, and I’ve heard that it wasn’t until recently that helmets and padding were required. Castellers is very traditional for towns in Cataluña (Barcelona’s region in Spain), and there’s a regional championship this week. Thousands of people-- young, old, tourist, Barcelonans-- gather in a plaza for this event twice during the week of Mercè.
Now that Mercè is over and I can rest a little, I’m doing some sightseeing around Barcelona to get to know my city a little more. I’m also getting ready to start traveling around Europe and the rest of Spain, so I’ll be sure to have more updates about my Spanish life soon. Until then… adios!
This is one in a series of posts by Stacey Marin from Barcelona, Spain.