Austria, Mountains, and Falconers

Hola a tothom,

Because it has been a ridiculously long time since I've written and, besides, I seriously doubt my ability to get anything productive done tonight, instead of reading about 17th-century Catalunya I will sit here, eat a chocolate-covered digestive cookie, and write to you all...

I suppose I should start more or less where I left off. Three weekends ago (the second-to-last weekend in November) I traveled out of Spain for the first time since I've been here and went to visit Connie in Vienna. It was a really nice weekend trip, though MUCH colder than it had been here in Barcelona, which was kind of a shock for me! I got in on Friday afternoon/evening - no airport problems, thankfully - and Connie met me at the Vienna airport to take the train into the city. It was cold and raining when we got there, which was really unpleasant to walk back to her place in and made me rethink my decision not to buy an overpriced duty-free umbrella. That night I met several of her friends, friends of friends, etc., and metroed around the city somewhat, though I didn't really get to see any of it since it was dark and rainy. Happily, the next morning when we got up it had gotten just enough colder to snow! Connie and I bundled up as much as we could and struck out for one of the city's many Christkindlmarkts, the Christmas markets. I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember the name of this one, but it was near the Museum Quarter, which was pretty cool. We spent a good while walking through it, coveting all the delicious-looking food and sipping hot punch. I ordered cranberry punch at a stall, and when the man gestured at it to confirm that it was the right one, I replied instinctively, "Sí!", to which he, with a startled look, replied, "Bonjour!" I had to smile at that - not quite the right romance language, but good try nonetheless. :)

After finally giving in and getting kebab for lunch, Connie and I went to see some really beautiful churches, one whose name I can't remember, and the other the Stefansdom, which I believe is the most famous. They were both really impressive. It had really started to snow at this point, which I was thoroughly enjoying by acting like a 6-year-old and constantly trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue. In the afternoon we met Connie's boyfriend Hugo and went up to palace more on the outskirts of the city with a big garden and labyrinth around it. It was very deserted and surreal in the snow, which was a neat experience. The trees were all bare, and there were rows of statues covered with canvas tarps. We walked behind the zoo (there were buffalo!) and then all of a sudden came out into a big lawn with a fountain on the end closest to us and the palace at the other end. As we were standing there taking pictures of the fountain and feeding the ducks with chocolate pastry (Connie!), the snow suddenly intensified into these bizarre little balls of snow that looked almost like hail (they were that big) but weren't icy. They were so heavy, though, that they fell really fast and kind of stung when they hit your skin. The ground turned completely white in a matter of minutes. Then, as if that weren't strange enough, it started thundering! In the middle of the snowstorm! To use a Catalan expression, estava flipant - I was kind of freaked out but also thought it was really cool!

We made our way to the other side of the palace where there was another Christkindlemarkt, complete with brave musicians playing Christmas music on brass instruments in the snow. By this time it had gone back to relatively normal snow conditions, but we were all pretty cold and tired, so we decided to head home. That night I attended a birthday celebration of someone who studied with Hugo, which I was afraid would be really awkward but turned out to be a lot of fun. Overall it was a great trip. I have to say, though, I was surprised at how much I missed Barcelona, even for three days. Even though I could communicate with people in Vienna in English, I felt bizarrely homesick for Spanish and Catalan. Even though I was sad to leave Connie, it was actually somewhat of a relief to get into the Barcelona airport on Sunday and hear announcements in Catalan again - it felt so normal. I guess that's a good thing, huh? It was also funny walking out of the airport and remembering the last time I was there, having to wait in line to try to claim my lost baggage when I first got here.. ugh. This was a much more enjoyable experience.

Connie and me in Vienna:

The next exciting thing that happened was the following weekend, when I went to the Pyrenees with CASB - that's right, more snow! We left from Barcelona on Friday evening and had about a 4-hour bus ride, since we were going about as far away as we could get and still be in Catalunya. We stayed in a beautiful hotel right at the foot of the mountains, near a tiny town called Llavorsí. I was really amazed at the luxury we got to experience - incredibly comfortable beds, tubs with bath salts, delicious 3-course dinners both nights! I felt very spoiled, but enjoyed it thoroughly. On Saturday we got to go snowshoeing in a national park, which was absolutely beautiful, although it snowed so much while we were out that the jeeps that had dropped us off couldn't get back to pick us up, so we had to snowshoe for almost an hour down the road to get back! We also visited the town of Sort, which means "Luck" in Catalan, and which, almost too coincidentally, is famous for selling winning lottery tickets. Juanjo and the UPF professor who accompanied us, Toni Luna, bought numbers for the Christmas Lottery there. It was a great trip - the whole CASB group didn't come, just those of us who were more up for a bit of an adventurous time in the mountains, which made it a lot of fun.

Snowshoeing!

Mountains! (I didn't realize how much I missed them):

This past weekend was a long weekend, which was really nice, and I spent it in Barcelona. Saturday was the day of the Constitution and Monday was the Immaculate Conception, so basically all weekend was a holiday. My most exciting news of the weekend is that I moved on Saturday! I'm now living in an apartment in the edge of the Raval, a neighborhood of the old city. I really like it, both being independent of the Residencia and getting to know my new barri (neighborhood). There are lots of winding streets and little shops - everything from butchers to baklava. I am particularly a fan of the café right across the street with cheap but good coffee, generally a table of old men playing cards in the back, and Spanish pop on the radio that always makes me laugh. Also, there's a big market really close, the Mercat de Sant Antoni, which is really cool. I went on Sunday, when the food stalls were closed but there was a book/collector's items fair going on outside, and then I bought ham there today. I think it'll be fun to shop there, since there's not really a normal grocery store near me.

Quick update on casteller activity: I went to our actuación in Girona last Thursday, which was so much fun. There were three colles there - the Xoriguers, from the Universitat de Girona, the Ganàpies, from the UAB, and us - and we thoroughly dominated. Same as in the Diada de Física i Química, we did a 3 de 7, a 4 de 7, a 5 de 6, and a pilar de 5. The highest castells any of the other collas made were of 5 stories (although one of them did a 3 de 5 net, which means without a pinya to support it, so I have to give them props for that). I've been going to lots of practices to gear up for our anniversary in 2 weeks, including pillar practices (assajos de pilars), which we have on Wednesday nights in the headquarters of the Castellers de Barcelona. They have a sort of gym-like space with ladders on the wall to practice and a big cage-type thing covered with nets with a hole in them. Basically you climb into the cage (it's taller than a person) and make the pillar from the inside, then it ends up poking up through one of the holes in the netting, so that if it falls the people on top fall onto the netting rather than all the way down to the floor. Pillar practices are tiring, because there are less of us so we're all working all the time, but I really like them - I've learned to climb up to the second story in a pillar without having anything to hold on to, and once I've even been baixa for a pilar de 3, meaning I was on the bottom on my own supporting two people on top of me! Last week we successfully completed a pilar de 5 per sota, meaning that instead of having people climb up to make the pillar, we start with the smallest person and lift her up onto the next, then lift the two of them onto the third, etc. Pilars per sota (meaning from below) are really hard but exciting. We tried it once, and right as we got to the last tier it fell, but then on the second try we made it! I think it was the first time we had ever done one completely, because immediately everyone burst into cheering, hugging each other and pounding each other on the back. I was very proud to have helped!

This Monday, which we had off, Hallie and I went to Vilafranca del Penedès, a nearby town/small city, to see some of my friends in my colla perform in an actuación of Falconers, which are kind of like castellers, except instead of making towers they make different human shapes and figures, such as pyramids. They did it inside a beautiful old theater, which was really cool. There were two people I knew performing and then about 7 of us who sat together to watch. Every time I see a group of castellers or falconers that aren't from a university (aka the majority of the colles), I'm amazed by the little kids in the canalla who climb to the very top as enxaneta... part of me really wants to have a family of castellers one day and have my kids be aixecador and enxaneta while I'm on the bottom, and part of me is terrified for them!

Falconers de Vilafranca:

Falconers making a traditional castellers-style tower and a really cool-looking tower of people all bent over and interlaced:

Next up on the agenda is our actuación at the UAB on Thursday, which I'm really looking forward to. If we have enough people we might be able to do a 4 amb agulla, meaning a tower of 4 people in each tier with a pilar in the middle! That would be so awesome... we did some really great practice runs of it today. We'll see what happens in the Plaça Cívica! Please forgive the lateness and length of this post ... hope you've enjoyed it!

Pit i amunt!
-Sarah

Pride

I wanted to share this video with everyone because it represents so well the excitement and pride after an awesome afternoon of making castells. It's from an actuación in Tarragona last Thursday - I actually wasn't there, because I had class, but I'm very proud of the Arreplegats nonetheless:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=34654244469

I'll write soon about Vienna, but for now suffice it to say that it was really pretty, snowy, and cold!!

Fins aviat,
Sarah

Photos - Actuació de Sant Albert

Pilar de 4!


The 3 de 7 in progress


Me as terceres mans during the 4 de 7


Me being climbed up during the 4 de 7


4 de 7 carregat (complete)!!


The 5 de 6

Me in uniform :)


In the pinya!


Go green go! Visca Arreplegats!

Un Cap de SetmanAZU!

Ui! It's been a while! Not quite a month, though, so it's not as bad as I had feared... at any rate, I have finally returned to update my blog. Let's see ... I didn't write for a while because things were pretty much just going along as normal, nothing special to report, and then all of a sudden I became very busy starting about last Thursday, and will most likely continue to be so for the next few weeks. I don't mind it too much, although it is kind of annoying that all of my classes decided to finally give me large projects due all at the same time. I'm working with two girls on a group project about the Catalan Revolt of 1640 for my Modern History of Catalunya class, which is due the day after my midterm for my class on the Spanish Civil War and Historical Memory. It's interesting, though - who knew that, briefly in 1640, Catalunya separated itself from the Spanish monarchy, handed itself over to the Bourbons in France, and then declared itself a republic! Of course, it didn't manage to stay that way for long... Anyway, I have that to work on, and then my "practiques" (sort of like lab sessions) started this week for Population Genetics. They're not so bad, but the scheduling is really weird and messes everything else up, because they only happen for three weeks but are during two other classes of mine and castellers practice. Grrr... It's only three weeks, though, I keep telling myself, and then it'll be done.

On a different subject, this weekend was really awesome! First of all, Chris Laubacher came to visit Hallie and me from Rome, which was very exciting. It was fun to get to hang out with him, though kind of weird to be sitting around a table in a restaurant in Barcelona talking about everyone in Chicago... I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked to with him, though, but for a good reason: we had our first actuación as castellers on Friday!! It was for the celebration of Sant Albert, which happened at the Faculty of Physics and Chemistry at the UB. The actuación started at 2:30, and I had class all morning, so I was so nervous/excited for the afternoon to arrive. I could hardly sit through history, knowing that I had my green shirt (with the seal of my team ironed on!), white pants, and faixa rolled up in my bag just waiting to be used for the first time. Finally class ended and I caught the train up to the Zona Universitària, where the Faculty of Physics and Chemistry is (across the city from the Faculty of History, of course). I got there right at 2:30, and the big atrium where it was taking place was full of people milling around, as well as a band playing and various groups of students selling food and t-shirts. I found the Arreplegats (a group of 50 people in bright green button-down shirts isn't too hard to spot) and got changed. A few minutes later, Chris, Hallie, and Chris's friend Ayla arrived, and shortly thereafter we got started!

It was kind of chaotic because it was so noisy and there were so many people, so I couldn't hear the cap de pinya calling out positions as well as I am used to during practices, but the actuación went really well. The first thing we made was a pilar de 4, basically a pillar 4 people high, with only one person in each story, supported by a huge group of people (the pinya) at the bottom. It was kind of a warmup, and it went really smoothly. Then we went straight for one of the big ones: a 3 de 7 (7 tiers, 3 people per tier in the trunk)! 7 is the highest castle a university team has ever made, so it was kind of ambitious of us for the first actuación of the season, but it went perfectly! Next we pulled off a 4 de 7 as well, which was a bit more wobbly but ended up well. For all of these I was in the pinya - for the 4de7 I was at terceres mans, which means I was the third person out supporting one of the baixos, or the people on the bottom who are directly stood upon. The next castell took a while to organize, and during the organization process the cap de colla, Tiru, realized that he was somehow missing a crossa, the people who go on either side of the baixos and support them with their arms over their shoulders, so he grabbed me and put me as crossa! I had never done it before, and I was a fair amount taller than the crossa opposite, which was slightly problematic, but it ended up working out fine. I ended up having no idea what castell we were making, though, because I was basically in the center of the pinya with my head down, covered by other people's arms. It turned out to be a 5 de 6, which is one of my favorites - I like castells of 5 because their structure is different and interesting (it's basically a tower of 3 and a tower of 2 stuck together, rather than 5 people in a circle, which would be too open). We finished off with a pilar de 5, which was also a little wobbly but finished well.

I think the best part of the actuación was right after it was over, when everyone was so excited about what we had done. We were all jumping up and down in this atrium full of people, yelling and clapping and shouting, "Visca Arreplegats! VISCA!" Then we sang our official song, the Himne dels Arreplegats, and one to the tune of "The 12 Days of Christmas" that goes, "Els Arreplegats hem fet avui aquí... UN 3de7, UN 4de7, UN pilar de 5, etc. - som més bons que la mare que ens va parir!" I was so proud to be part of it all.

The celebration continued on Saturday with a lunch at the house of a girl in the group named Brigitte (but who goes by Vichy). There were about 15 of us that went, some that I knew pretty well and some that I didn't. I was really happy to be invited, though. 8 of us met in Plaça España, theoretically at 12 (though we didn't all get there until about 12:40) to catch the train, because Vichy lives out in a nearby town called St. Boi. Once we got there, we wandered around the town for a while trying to find pizza dough, had adventures in a grocery store involving Sareta, the president of the team, in a shopping cart, and finally bought chestnuts and sweet potatoes and made it to Vichy's house. I felt bad because it was about 2:30 by this point, and I had told Chris I would go to the Picasso Museum with him at 3:30, but I realized that if I did that I wouldn't even have time to eat, so I had to cancel on him. It ended up all right, though - he went on his own and I ended up staying in St. Boi until 6:00! We had a fantastic lunch of frozen pizzas, roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes, empanada, and homemade panellets (traditional pastries with pine nuts on the outside) and beignet-type things courtesy of Vichy's mom. It was really nice to just be sitting around outside, eating, talking, listening to people play the guitar and sing in Catalan... very relaxing and fun. Also great for my Catalan - I'm improving so much just by hanging out with friends and trying to follow their conversations.

I'm really excited for the rest of our winter season now, although I'm annoyed that, thanks to my genetics lab sessions, I'm going to have to miss several practices and actuacions. This coming Thursday we have an actuación in Reus, a town near Tarragona, that I won't be able to go to. The week after that we have on in Girona on Dec. 4, which I might make but might not, then one at the UAB on Dec. 11 that I will definitely be able to go to and, finally, our own Diada (in which we invite other teams) in honor of the anniversary of our colla on Dec. 18th. I absolutely won't miss that one! In the meantime I have to miss Tuesday practices, which is frustrating, but we're also starting special practices for making pillars on Wednesdays. I don't really know anything about making pillars, but I figured I would go and learn, and at least help out in the pinya. After all, pillars are a useful skill to know - they come in handy for making random improvised castells, retrieving balloons from trees, hanging signs on telephone poles, etc... hehe...

So! With that, I will sign off - I'm going to post a bunch of pictures of the actuación in a separate post (it's easier that way). Next time I write it will probably be about my trip to Vienna this coming weekend to visit Connie! Fins aviat!

Pit i amunt!
-Sarah

...In Which Sarah Becomes Obsessed With Castellers

Hola a tothom,

It's been a good week or so. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I have continued going to practices with my castellers colla, and with gusto! I've been to three now, and I learn a lot every time I go. Practice on Tuesday was really fun, because there were less people and more inexperienced people like me, so we spent more time on basics, practicing how to climb, etc. I got stood on a lot, and my shoulders were really sore afterwards, but I was happy about it. It was a very similar feeling to how your collarbones feel after you've just started backpacking - bruised and rubbed on, but accomplished (can collarbones feel accomplished? Well, mine did, anyway). I also learned more about how the pinya is set up and got to be in a position called contrafort, which is one person out from the very center, directly supporting the people who are being stood on. I still don't completely understand this, but it seems to me that sometimes the pinya is just made up of a mass of people all standing around with their hands in the air, whereas sometimes it is extremely well-organized, with everyone in a specific position (crossos, contrafort, bens, laterals, primeres mans, segones mans, etc.), and each of the sections exactly square to each other. In the latter case, it almost seems that the pinya needs to be more precisely organized than the tower itself; if it's lined up slightly wrong, they'll take the whole thing apart and start over. Anyway, clearly I have a lot to learn, but it's all very interesting. I'm also pleased that people remember my name more and more. This past Thursday, we had to practice inside because of the rain, which wasn't as fun, but it meant we were all concentrating and had to be really quiet to hear the cap de pinya calling out positions. At one point he came over to adjust how I had my hands and asked what my name was. When I said Sarah, he said something like, "Another one?!" I laughed and clarified, "Amb h" ("With an h"). In Catalan, the letter h is pronounced "hac," so when I said they could call me "Sarah amb h," he agreed and shortened it to "Sarah-amb-hac, Saramac." We'll see what my name ends up being ... thus far people tend to refer to me either as "Sarah-amb-hac" or "Sarahhh," with an exaggerated sound of aspiration on the end. Either way, at least I'm differentiated from the other Sara's.

Let's see - other exciting things from this week: Yesterday (Saturday) I took a day trip to Girona. It's a lovely little city, half-perched on a mountainside. I was supposed to go for a tour with the Language Voluntariat from UPF, but, unfortunately, I missed the train and had to catch the next one an hour later. By the time I got there, the tour was almost over. Luckily, I had the phone number of my friend Belén, whom I had met last weekend and who is also in the Voluntariat, so I called her and met up with them. I caught the tail end of the tour, which was nice, and then Belén, her boyfriend, visiting from France, and I went to eat lunch. The Fires de Sant Narcís were happening, which are kind of like a weeklong street fair/festival, so there were lots of vendors out with delicious food. We ate in a big park where there was a creepily deserted carnival set up between stands of sycamore trees, then decided to go back to the old part of the city to explore a bit more. We saw the Ramblas, which is much smaller and nicer than the Ramblas in Barcelona, the cathedral, and a good part of the old Jewish neighborhood. We also had coffee (of course) and went in a wine store where the French boyfriend asked in not-very-good Spanish if he could try many of the different local varieties, which were housed in big barrels with taps, before finally buying about 3 liters' worth, which the store owner presented to him in old plastic Coca-Cola bottles. It was a lot of fun. Here's a picture of Belén and me on one of the bridges in the old city:


Belén and her boyfriend had to leave at about 6:30 because they had dinner plans in Barcelona, but I decided to stay on and explore the city some more. I bought a delicious traditional chocolate pastry and ate it sitting on the old city wall, which dates to the 9th century. Here's a picture, for your viewing pleasure:After enjoying my pastry and getting some odd looks from passers-by, I hiked around the slightly-less-old city walls (from the 14th century) and watched the sun set over the University of Girona, the cathedral, and, in the background, the mountains:

It was really beautiful. I could have lived there, I think.

To end the evening, I had seen in a program that there would be castellers, so, of course, I had to go! The only problem was, I had no idea where the plaza was where they would be performing. I was going to ask someone, but then I saw someone walking by in a castellers outfit! I decided to just follow along - surreptitiously, of course. This proved problematic when he went into a bar and started chatting, and I couldn't just stand outside and wait. A very silly half hour or so then ensued during which I followed various castellers around the old neighborhood, trying to be discreet, periodically losing track of one group and then spotting another. Finally they seemed to be converging on one small plaza, so I noted it in my mind and decided to go to a cafe for a bit, since it was still a while before they were scheduled to perform. Shortly afterward, however, I heard the traditional music that's played while a castell is in progress! I thought, "Oh no, they've started early after all!" But no, they were actually having a parade through the city, so I jumped up and went along with them! We processed across a bridge and wound our way through the newer part of the city to an entirely different plaza that I never would have found on my own, traditional instruments playing the whole time. Then, after much organizing and milling around, they finally started making castells. I only got to stay for a few, because I had to catch the last train back to Barcelona at 9:30, but it was a lot of fun to watch them and actually know what was going on. Plus, it made me that much more excited to imagine myself all dressed up in my shirt and faixa, actually participating in an actuacion. I can't wait!

So, overall I would say the week and the weekend were a success. I can't wait until practice on Tuesday now - also, we have a welcome dinner for the new members of the colla like me on Thursday night! I'm so glad I've joined - I think it's my favorite thing I've done so far in Catalunya. I'll keep you updated as to how things go!

Fins aviat,
Sarah

Arreplegats!

Hola a tothom,

Things have been starting to feel a lot more normal around here recently, which is nice - I'm busy, but I have a regular schedule (it took long enough!). I spend a lot of time in transit around the city and out to UAB, but that's OK, largely because a). the UAB decided to pay for my metro tickets, so I now have a monthly pass, and b). I finally got a bike on Wednesday! I got it through bicicampus, the program I wrote about earlier. It was so exciting! It's kind of challenging to find the best routes around the city on bike, because a lot of streets are one-way and/or, as happened to me yesterday, have huge demonstrations randomly occurring on them and blocking all traffic, but I'm still able to get places much more quickly, which is awesome. Plus, it's really fun to be able to ride a bike again! I have really missed it all summer.

OK, here's my big news of the week (although most people who read this blog probably already know it): I've joined a group of castellers! Yes, the crazy people who climb on top of each other and make human towers - there's a picture of them in an earlier post! The group (in Catalan it's called a "colla") is called Arreplegats de la Zona Universitària. "Arreplegat" basically means "piled up," so I guess I'm part of the pile! Normally, the colles are from specific neighborhoods or towns, and include a wide variety of age groups, including little kids who climb up to the top because they're the lightest. My colla is a bit unorthodox because it's entirely made up of people associated with the universities in Barcelona (any of them) - students, faculty, etc. Because we don't have young children, our towers are heavier and tend to be shorter, so we don't really compete against the other groups as much. I'm glad, though, because it lets people like me who have no idea what they're doing participate! All of this came about because of an event I went to last Saturday called "Català means feeling!" (so corny, I know) designed to promote Catalan language and culture for foreign students. I went on a tour of the Casa Amatller, a modernist house, then went to the Universitat Ramon Llull, where there was food, music, a wine tasting, an attempt at organizing speed dating (that was really funny to watch - I didn't participate!), and, finally, a castellers workshop. I was curious to see how it would work, and it turned out to be a small contingent of people from the group who came and did a few demonstrations, then invited people to participate. I volunteered, so I got to help with a few really small towers. Afterwards, I was talking to one of the girls in the group, and she invited me to come out to their practices! I was so thrilled.

I went to my first practice ("assaig," in Catalan) on Thursday. I got there late because I had class, and I was kind of nervous, but it was a lot of fun. The dynamic of the practice was a great mixture between barely controlled chaos and then everyone finally coming together right before they tried a tower and concentrating really hard. There were people walking around taking down everyone's names and making nametags so they could keep track of who was who, and when I said my name was Sarah, they all kind of groaned and said they would have to come up with a nickname because there were too many Sarahs. Then I didn't see the people with the nametags again for a while, and when I found them and asked if they had a name for me, they said I could just be Sarah after all, and all the other ones would have to come up with nicknames! It was still confusing, though, because they kept calling another one Sarah (or Sara), even though her nametag said Sareta.

I got to practice climbing up someone at the beginning (I still need to practice more - there's a very particular technique...), and then I spent most of the time helping form the pinya, which is the group of people at the bottom that provides support and spots for the people climbing. Quick vocab lesson on castellers: the group at the bottom is called the pinya, then the people who make up all the tiers are called the tronc (like the trunk of a tree). Then there are three specific positions that make up the top part, called the pom: the dossos, which are two people who stand on the top tier of the tronc (called dossos because there are two, or dos, of them), then the acotxador, who kind of crouches on top of them, and finally the enxaneta, who stands on the very top and waves ("fa l'aleta") to signal that the tower is complete. As I said, I was in the pinya the whole time on Thursday. Basically I would stand around and watch as the people in the tronc and pom got into position, then one of the captains, either the cap de colla or the cap de pinya, would grab me and place me somewhere, explaining quickly in Catalan whom I was supposed to support and how. I spent a lot of time holding my arms up in the air! We actually had one castell fall, which was scary, but it reassured me because we were able to catch everyone really easily and no one got hurt at all. The tactic of making a human cushion actually seems to work really well!

I think we're going to start having practices on Tuesdays as well as Thursdays, which is good because I won't have to be late on Tuesdays and that way can learn more quickly. I'm so excited to be in the colla, though - it's a lot of fun, all the people seem really friendly and welcoming, and it's a great way to practice my Catalan. If I'm ever in any big castells, I'll put up pictures! Haha, I have a lot of practicing to do before I get to that point... In case anyone is curious, here's the website of the colla (it's in Catalan, but it might be fun to look around anyway): www.arreplegats.cat.

Hope everyone is doing well - I'll try to keep you better updated!
Una abraçada,
Sarah

Love/Hate Relationship

Whew - sorry I haven't written in so long! It's been kind of a crazy few weeks. I've been alternating between standing in line for long periods of time and arguing with representative of Spanish bureaucracy on the one hand and then going to awesome, free festivals for the the celebration of Barcelona's patron saint, La Mercè, on the other. I'll vent briefly about the bureaucracy, then get on to the good stuff: sometimes I think all I do in Spain is stand in line! There's even an expression for the activity of standing in line: "hacer cola" (or "fer cua" in Catalan). The main thing I've been dealing with is extending my student visa, which I finally succeeded at on Tuesday. Hooray! I can legally live here now! It really shouldn't have been that difficult of a process, except that my residence hall decided to be uncooperative and not give my any of the information I need to register in the civil registry, a necessary step for extending one's visa. It was incredibly frustrating to be in a position of mediating for about a week between government officials who said, "You absolutely have to have the name and DNI of the director of your residence on this letter certifying that you live there" and people at my residence who said, "We absolutely can't put a name or a DNI on this letter." Ack! I was about at the point of saying, "Look! If you won't give me this information, then I clearly I can't live here anymore and have to go look for an apartment, thereby causing you to lose money! Don't you understand this situation?!" Fortunately, I finally got them to give me the bare minimum of what was necessary, and, after registering on Monday, was able to go to the Chief of Police on Tuesday, where I took a number and waited for an hour in a makeshift "waiting room" (a cordoned-off section of a garage with chairs set up) to be able to take another number and go wait in the real waiting room. Once I finally got up to a desk, I had everything and was almost home free except that my passport photos were too big (apparently U.S. passport size is not the same as Spanish passport size). I was about to lose it, but fortunately the lady said there was a place around the corner where I could take more pictures, and she gave me a special pass so I wouldn't have to wait in line again when I came back. So finally everything worked out! My current/next challenge is matriculating at the UB and UAB, which will undoubtedly involve more lines and paperwork.

As for fun stuff - there's been a lot of it recently, fortunately! La Mercè was pretty incredible. I've never seen an entire city participate in a festival so whole-heartedly for a whole week. Also, large-scale public events just seem to work better here than in U.S. cities. Maybe it's because everyone really wants them to go smoothly. I was so impressed when we had read in a guide that they were giving out free bread and chocolate at this museum, and then when we showed up, they actually were! What's more, everyone was being perfectly calm and civil about it - there were no lines (amazing!), pushing or shoving. You just walked up to a table, took your bread and chocolate, and enjoyed it. Lovely. A similar experience happened when I was wandering around the Parc de la Ciutadella, where there were all sorts of stalls and booths and stages set up, as well as troops of people dressed up like giraffes or giant ants playing instruments and walking around:

Inside a formal garden next to the Parlament de Catalunya, there were tons of really comfortable folding lawn chairs set up for people to sit in, while lovely guitar music played. Once again, I was amazed at how calmly people reacted to this. It felt very dreamlike, actually, in the sense that I found myself thinking, "Of course - why shouldn't I sit for a while in these chairs, listen to the music, watch the clouds, then move on and let someone else sit here?" Here's a picture:

Absolutely the most incredible thing I saw during the Mercè, though, was the correfoc. It's hard to describe, but I'll do my best. Correfoc literally means "fire run"; basically it was a huge parade through the old city consisting of teams of people from different neighborhoods and sometimes large beasts they had made out of paper mache (I think) holding excessive amounts of really big sparklers, usually set up on rotating poles so that, when lit, they whirled around in circles and sprayed a lot of sparks all over everyone watching. The people in the parade were ususally dressed up as devils, with long capes and head-coverings and fireproof gloves, as they were literally in the middle of exploding fireworks. I have never seen so many explosions up so close - it was crazy but so much fun, and everyone around me was so excited and into it. At the beginning, an announcer up on a platform next to me told a story in Catalan that I could mostly follow about some legendary creature that had always been associated with the correfoc but was forbidden by Franco, so some knights (interesting mix of medieval legend and recent history) went to rescue it and freed it from its chains, at which point it vowed to always protect Catalan culture and traditions. All of this was acted out, with lots of fireworks as well. At the end, as a sort of invocation, he said something like, now the festival will begin, "amb foc, la millora manera d'expresar la nostra joia!" ("with fire, the best way to express our joy!"). I loved it. I felt so proud to be able to understand and cheer along when he addressed us as "Barcelonins i Barcelonines!"
Here's the mythical creature whose name I'm not sure of:And a view from the sidewalk:
It was incredible.

OK, I need to get to bed! Hope that's given you a snapshot of what's going on here. I'll try to write more regularly - that will make it easier to keep up with everything, anyway!
Somriures,
Sarah

Aventures Lingüístiques

Hola a tothom,
Things are moving along here, as they tend to do - two weeks down, and the proseminar is almost over. I have my first real class on Thursday! It's both exciting and scary, but mostly exciting. Because I know you're all dying from curiosity, here's my tentative course schedule for this semester: I'm taking Modern History of Catalonia at the UB, which is on Thursdays and Fridays from 12:30 to 2. I'll also be taking a Catalan class at the UB, but I don't know when yet because I have to take a level test on Friday to see which class to enroll in. At the UAB, I'm planning on taking population genetics, which meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 to 11. Then I'm taking the CASB course on the Spanish Civil War and Historical Memory, taught by Juanjo (the program director), which meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 9 to 11. As you can see, I have a conflict on Mondays between the UAB class and the CASB class, but Juanjo said I can work independently or possibly in a later group and then come to normal class on Thursdays. Excel•lent!

I'm really excited to start classes, largely because I'm eager to meet more people and speak to them in Spanish and Catalan (especially Catalan). This is kind of an awkward time, because I've gotten a lot more comfortable with my surroundings, so I don't necessarily want or need to hang out with other people in the program as much, but I don't know anyone else yet. It's kind of a limiting feeling. However, I think it will change soon. It's funny - there are moments when I feel kind of lonely or down, but I don't particularly miss Chicago. It's not that I want to be anywhere else - it's just that I want to be more here than I am capable of at the moment, if that makes sense. The old OA saying applies, as always: be here now. It's funny how the simplest things, though, like talking to a little boy in the park or ordering café amb llet, can make me really happy.

Hallie and I have been exploring the city a lot - we went to Montjuïc yesterday, for example - and we've developed what is now our favorite game when we're around large groups of people: Guess Their Nationality, or, as Roger de Gràcia, the host of a Catalan TV show called Caçadors de Paraules that I like, says, "Endevina d'on són!" ("Guess where they're from!"). I find myself constantly listening to people around me to try to hear what language they're speaking, be it one of the two official languages of Catalunya or a foreign one. Hallie keeps getting addressed by people in French, which is cool and funny, considering that she isn't French and doesn't speak it at all. I'm always pleased when someone speaks to me in Spanish or Catalan, which happens occasionally. I think my favorite story of a linguistic adventure thus far happened to Hallie during the Diada on Tuesday (I don't think she'll mind if I write this here). There were a bunch of really cool traditional children's games set up on the Passeig de Lluís Companys, a wide street/plaza near us, and she was trying to play one that was made out of iron shaped like a bird - you had to somehow maneuver the bird's egg, which was a small wooden ball, through it. An old man must have noticed that she didn't know how to do it, so he asked her (in Catalan) if she knew what it was. She didn't remember the word for bird in Catalan, so, thinking of Latin, she said the first thing that came to mind, "És un ave." However, "avi," which is what it came out sounding like, means "grandfather" in Catalan! I think the old man was fairly confused, so she quickly clarified in Spanish by saying, "Es un pájaro." Now, however, I keep thinking of the iron bird/grandfather... I haven't had any mixups in particular, but I was very pleased buying milk the other day to find a brand called "T'estimo" ("I love you"), with a picture of a woman kissing a cow on the nose! It was really cute, so I bought it, and later discovered that it's from a group of Catalan co-ops called Llet Nostra - hooray for buying local and loving cows!

I'm going to try to post some pictures from the Diada to give you a sense of it - hopefully this will work.

L'estelada, the flag originally designed as a battle standard for Republican troops marching out of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, flying from the Arc de Triomf. There were lots of these all over the place.

The sign says, "A free country, a better country." There were lots of political activists about, especially those for independence from Spain.

A giant banner of Les Quatre Barres, the official Catalan flag, hanging from the Corte Inglés in Plaça Catalunya.

Castellers! We actually saw these the night before the Diada, at Tibidabo. It's one of those awesome, bizarre Catalan traditions: making ridiculously tall human towers, accompanied by dramatic music played on a clarinet-like instrument. The most amazing part was the little kid who climbed up all the adults to stand on top and wave, then shimmied down them as if they were a fireman's pole. I was seriously impressed. I also think it's awesome that, in the newspapers, next to the horoscopes and crossword puzzles, they have a section of Castellers rankings for all the different teams from different neighborhoods.

Well, hope you've enjoyed it! I will definitely update again once classes start!
Saludos,
Sarah

Hola a tothom,
It's been almost a week, and, in that strange way time has of distorting itself, it feels like I've been here both longer and shorter than that. My room in the Residència is already starting to feel like home. It's small and can be kind of noisy, being right next to the front desk, main entrance, and elevator, but it's cosy. My roommate, Rachel, and I have been enjoying some cooking adventures in our kitchen as we discover both what it is (corkscrew, nameless wooden spatula-ish things, microwave with a "grill" function that doubles as a bread box) and is not (oven, normal spatula, lids to any of the pots and pans) equipped with. We made some butifarres, traditional Catalan sausages, the other night that turned out very well. We've also been slowly acquiring all the random items that we never would have thought of to bring but quickly discovered that we needed. My most recent purchase included saran wrap, tupperware that, upon closer inspection, doesn't seal, ice cube trays, and a bucket/trash can for the bathroom. The Residència Onix certainly isn't perfect, but things are going well here and I'm grateful to have a place to live in such a convenient location.

We're well into the proseminar by now, which means that all of our mornings - and my definition of "morning" has now expanded until about 2:30 or 3:00, since that's when we stop for lunch - are taken up by class. We have three classes, one at each of the universities we can attend. Spanish is at the UAB, Catalan at the UB, and History and Culture is at the UPF. The class sessions are kind of intense, since they go for about 4 hours at a time with a short coffee/croissant break in the middle, but they're not too bad. History and Culture is the most stressful, because the professor is really hard to understand and has a very tangential style of lecturing. The hardest part is that, half of the time, I have to stop to think about each statement he makes and concentrate on writing in down in an intelligible form in my notebook, by which time I've missed his next statement. Also, in our last session of that class, we watched a movie called "Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall," about when the U.S. sent aid to Spain through the Marshall Plan, that gave me a terrible headache because the entire time all the characters were running around chaotically and shouting at each other. I never quite knew what was going on.

My other two classes are much more relaxed. We had our first Catalan class today, which I was excited about but which ended up being pretty boring because I had to sit through all the most basic things, like how to pronounce the alphabet, when I really could have used a review of the subjunctive. I talked to Libby about it, though, and I think I might work independently from here on out, possibly reading a novel by Mercè Rodoreda and writing about it. I've read several of her books in English, so I would really enjoy that. Spanish class is good as well - tomorrow I'm giving a short, formal oral presentation on the history of Moon Pies. Should be interesting.

Although I'm starting to settle into a routine here, I am looking forward to having some free time this weekend. We also have next Thursday off, as it is the Diada, or National Day of Catalunya. I'm really curious to see what happens on the Diada. I've heard that it's more of a solemn type of holiday than, for example, the 4th of July. After all, Catalunya isn't independent. We visited the Parlament de Catalunya yesterday, which I found really interesting. The building was originally built to be the arsenal for the Spanish army occupying Barcelona in the 1700s. It briefly served as a parliament for the first time from 1932-1939, before Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War destroyed all Catalan autonomy, and it was converted into an art museum. Finally, in 1980, five years after Franco's death, the Parlament was reinstituted and the building regained its civic function. Of course, Catalunya, though an autonomous community, is still under control of Madrid - the representatives in favor of independence are in the minority, for now. Who knows what will happen eventually - but it's certainly interesting to learn about.

Besides our classes and excursions, I've basically just been adjusting to everyday life. I really like buying fresh fruit at a fruit stand near the Residència and keeping a fresh baguette in our microwave along with queso manchego and jamón serrano to make bocadillos for lunch. We've been given a ton of little guides, maps, and phrasebooks to help us find our way around the city, some of which are hilarious. There's a Catalan conversation guide from the UB with a section called "Chatting Up," which includes such choice phrases as "I like it when you tell me things" ("M'agrada quan m'expliques coses"). Hopefully I'll be able to get a bike soon, as I discovered a website called bicicampus that promotes biking to universities in Barcelona and lends bikes for free to students for the whole school year (see the banners on this blog). Also, I've seen flyers for several plays I'd love to go see, including one by Tom Stoppard (although I think Tom Stoppard in Catalan would just about do me in) and one that's an adaptation of a book I read in English called Mirall Trencat (Broken Mirror).

Thanks for the comments - I'll do my best to keep you updated! I should know about what classes I'm going to take this semester soon.
Fins desprès!

First Impressions

¡Saludos desde Barcelona!
Well, I'm finally here, and it's hard to believe. It's been an interesting journey. I'm still trying to figure out a balance between writing too much and not leaving out anything important, so forgive me if I bore you with details! I left Nashville yesterday (it seems like so much longer than that!) around 1:00. The flight to DC was fine, if uneventful. It was nice to get on a slightly bigger plane for the transatlantic flight to Frankfurt. I was sitting with a lady heading to Turkey and a nice gentleman from Copenhagen who reminded me of Daniel Craig in appearance, so that was fun. I tried to get some sleep, unsuccessfully, but it didn't bother me that much. Probably the highlight of the journey was the Frankfurt airport, where I stepped out of the "transfer tunnel" that I had to walk through to get to my next terminal and was very nearly run over by an airport official weaving through the terminal on a bike! Apparently that's the cool way to get around in the Frankfurt airport - I also saw a couple of officials cruising around on the tarmac on bicycles. Good for them, I say!

I got into Barcelona on time, but was very unhappy to discover that my baggage did not. So, after waiting around by the baggage claim and then in line at the lost and found office, I finally left El Prat airport in a mixture of frustration, exhaustion, and excitement to actually be there, carrying only my messenger bag and U of C tote. I got a taxi and made it easily into the city to my hotel, for which I was very grateful. However, I couldn't rest quite yet, because I had given the baggage claim people at the airport the number and address of the Residència Onix, where I'll be moving on Sunday, since I don't have a cellphone here yet. So, after a quick shower, I made my way over to the Residència and explained the situation. I imagine it must have been kind of strange - me explaining in nervous Spanish that I'm going to be living there starting on Sunday, but my lost bags might get there before me, and could you please hold them for me? - but the guy at the desk was really nice and helpful. He reassured me that it happened all the time, and even invited me to check out the building, which I did, briefly. It's pretty cool; I'm excited to be living there.

Once that was taken care of, I went back to the hotel to let myself rest. I napped for about an hour and a half, then headed out to explore. I really like walking around here, especially on the wide avenues shaded by huge sycamore trees. I guess the name, L'Eixample, which means "The Widening," is fitting! I walked down the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes to the main building of the Universitat de Barcelona, one of the schools I will be attending. It was so beautiful. I wandered through courtyards lined with arcades of old columns, many with quiet fountains in the middle of them. A few families - I would assume they were professors with their children - were enjoying the garden as I walked through it. A group of slightly mangy but cute cats eyed me from behind one of the benches. I hope I get to take a class there - it was such a tranquil place in the middle of the bustle of the city. I was getting hungry by then, so I picked a fun-looking tapas place. It was probably overpriced, since it was on the corner of the Gran Via and the Rambla de Catalunya, but I liked being able to sit outside and watch everyone go by. The best part was that I ordered and spoke to my waiter only in Catalan! It was a small but exciting triumph, especially since there were other people speaking English sitting next to me.

I think hearing and seeing Catalan all around me is both the most exciting and surreal part of being here right now. It still kind of amazes me that I can sit here in my hotel room and watch TV3, the Catalan public TV station, or hear people on the street use the same phrases in everyday life that up until now have only existed in the context of class for me. I'm still trying to get the hang of how Spanish and Catalan interact in the city. You definitely hear a lot of both - of course, you also hear a lot of English, German, and countless other languages. At some point, I'd like to get the chance to travel to a smaller town in Catalunya where it really is the primary or only language that people speak. But, even if not everyone speaks it here all the time, if you do speak it, people respond. I'm sure I'll keep learning more about the linguistic situation as I go.

I'm looking forward to the arrival of the other CASB kids tomorrow and things getting under way! Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment!
Fins desprès,
Sarah