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