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