Piles of People and Chasers with Fire

The weekend was only a few days away. My plans to go to Valencia had fallen through because the girls me and my roommate were going to go with aren’t too reliable. They were American. I remembered seeing on my CEA calendar of events that there was a bank holiday on Friday (the 24^th of September) called La Merce. With plans for the weekend hanging in the balance, I went to the internet to do a little research.

La Merce was started in 1871 as a Roman Catholic holiday to honor the feast day of Our Lady of Mercy. I learned that it was the biggest of the festivals that Barcelona holds each year; a giant street party from Wednesday-Sunday night. The festival was composed of two main cultural components: correfuc and castellars; and on the last night there was to be a firework show on Montjuic. I soon forgot about my broken plans for Valencia and began to get excited for the coming weekend.

The correfuc was the first event that I went to. I was told by one of my teachers to wear thick, cotton clothing and some kind of head gear. My art teacher even told us that when she was younger, she and her friends would douse themselves with water and run to and from the blazing creations. I decided against wearing heaving clothes and dousing myself with water, but I did go to see what the correfuc was all about. It turned out to be a little more than I expected. There were drummers pounding beats as sparks and flames spit out of the man-made creatures. I was amazed at some of the little kids that were right in the action, but I didn’t see anybody get hurt.

The next morning, my roommate and I woke up extra early (11am) to go see the Castellars in Placa San Jaume. We got there about 10 minutes before it was scheduled to start, so the square was packed with people. Somehow we were able to mosey our way through the crowd and get a good look at what was going on. I had seen a video of them in one of my classes, but I knew that seeing it in person would be ten-times better. Each team made their way to the area of the square right below the mayor’s balcony. We watched all of the teams assemble their castles successfully, with the little child climbing to the top and raising his hand. It must take months and years of practice, not to mention tremendous strength to stack people up like that. I thought about how hard these people must have to work in order to pull this off. You don’t see that kind of devotion to culture back in the states.

Finally, to cap off the weekend, me and a few friends went to the firework show at Montjuic. It was by far the best fireworks show that I’ve ever seen. It lasted about 40 minutes, while playing a lot of British and American pop songs that I was very familiar with. Plus the fountain changing colors in front of the beautiful museum added to the aesthetics. I swear it seemed like the entire city of Barcelona was crammed into Placa Espanya that night. Again, it was cool to see how important culture still is over here. In the US, we have our holidays, but they usually revolve around something commercial or getting really drunk. Perhaps after living over here for my time, I will try to concentrate on my culture a little more when the opportunities arise.