Diada, Barri Gotic, Parque Guell

This past week went by very quickly, since we had a few days off from our Spanish classes. September 11th here is a holiday (which is weird considering things at home), and since it was a Thursday, most everyone had Friday off too. Sept 11th is Diada Catalunya, or Catalonia Day, and pretty much functions as Catalonia's national holiday, even though Catalonia is not a nation, but a semi-autonomous province. It's sort of like if Illinois had some extra governing powers that other states didn't, their own language and culture, and wanted to have their own 4th of July.

The funny thing is that while most nations celebrate the day that they declared their independence, or their first king or president was inaugurated, or their bill of rights was passed, here they celebrate the day that their independance was taken away. On Sept 11th, 1714, Barcelona fell to a months-long siege that was conucted by the armies of the Bourbon claimant to the Spanish throne, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Catalonia, in the hopes of remaining independent, supported the Hapsburg claimant, but was absorbed by Spain as punishment for supporting the wrong guy. I put up a few pictures online.

Anyways, they celebrate it with a lot of official things in the morning, and then a lot of separatist groups have booths and demonstrations in the afternoon. Other than that, nothing much happens. The biggest festival here is actually next week- it's Barcelona's annual festival, and goes for about a week (sort of like the taste of Chicago, but supposedly more dangerous. My professor mentioned something about tossing a goat off the roof of some cathedral).

It's called la Merce, and starts the 19th. The biggest thing they usually have each year is the pyramid builders. Its almost like a sport- guys from different towns have "teams" of like 40 or so guys, and they stand on top of each other to make a pyramid that is usually 4-6 levels high. Usually its built with a core of 4 guys that are in the middle and extend up to almost the top, and sits on top of a base made up for 20 or so people. Around them in the plaza, the crowd pushes in so there is no space anywhere. None of them wear any protective gear, since Spain in general is not big on protective anything. At the very end, 1 little kid, like 5 or 6 years old, climbs to the very top. They're supposed to dismantle it by each person sliding down, but sometimes it's just too much, and the whole thing collapses down on itself. Which means that there's like layers of people on each other, including the crowd, since they are pushed up so close. Last year the kid at the top fell, and died right there, so now the kids who are climbing need to wear helmets (no one else does).

The only other interesting things that happened this week were my wanderings around the Gothic Quarter of the city and my visit to Parque Guell. Barri Gotic just borders on the area that I have my classes at, IES had a profesor take us around that area. It was really cool, because the whole area is the original city, which was occupied in turn by native Iberians, Romans, Carthaginians, Visigoths, Moors (briefly), and modern Christians. The professor who came with us has her masters in medieval history, so she knew a whole bunch of really cool things about the city and the history of the places that she took us too.

Walking we passed by Els Cuarto Gats, a small cafe that Picasso, Dali and a whole bunch of famous artists used to hang out there. We went by a 3rd AD (maybe it was 4th AD, I don't remember completely) Roman graveyard that was accidentally found when some company was building new apartment buildings there (Plaza Madrid), and also parts of an old Roman aqueduct just sorta standing in the middle of Plaza Nova. Near there was also an area with the leftover columns of an old Roman temple, which was later placed with this huuuuge Gothic Cathedral. I snapped a few pictures, but i'll have to go back to actully take good pictures.

We went by the old throne of Castile and Aragon, where Ferdinand and Isabella received Christopher Columbus when he returned from his first trip to the Americas (ridiculous). Also the original entrance to the city, Porta de l'Angel. We also stopped by Plaza de Sant Jaume, where the old Roman forum used to stand, and the modern Generalitat stands (town halls, gov buildings ect). Neus, another professor with us, had grown up in Barcelona, and she told us how if you wanted to get in trouble you'd come down to Plaza de Sant Jaume on Sunday mornings back in the 60s and early 70s to dance the Catalonian National Dance, the Sardana. During Franco's time, speaking Catalan and any exhibition of Catalan culture was prohibited- so Neus said she and her friends would dance in front of the government buildings to protest, and the police would come out to arrest them and they'd all have to run away. Also at this plaza the soccer team (The Barca) goes after they win games (never) to greet fans and everything.

The next day I went with some friends to Parque Guell, which is the gigantic park that was designed by the Spanish architect Gaudi. We had no idea where we were going, so we kind of just got of the metro and walked in what we thought was the right direction. We overshot the main entrance, but it turned out that the side entrance we went through was way more interesting. That side of the city is more hilly, and the park is built on the highest area there, so you need to walk up this 45 degree slope for a while, and then there's 6 or 7 outdoor escalators, one after another, that take you up the entrance. Then there's more stairs. It turns out the main entrance doesn't involve any stairs, and is the part where you can see all of the tile and the tiled dragon that you see pictures of. The tiled part makes a sort of terrance that is held up bye tens of romanesque columns underneath- there's maybe 30-40 of them. Pictures of that will be put up soon. Also a few pictures from the very top, where we can see 2 more Barcelona landmarks in the distance.

That's all for now... dinner's in a few. This week I start real classes, and then it's La Merce so I'll write all about that later. I'll be putting pictures on flickr pretty soon.