Santa Eulàlia

Tornem-hi!

Amics i amigues,
I thought I'd give a brief update on my castellering activities for the Festes de Santa Eulàlia, as they were fairly exciting and this way I won't get too behind on blogging! All of the colles of Barcelona - the Castellers de Barcelona, Castellers de Sants, Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia, Castellers de la Sagrada Familia, and my new colla, the Castellers del Poble Sec - performed together in an actuación on Sunday in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, the main plaça in the old city, between the Ajuntament and the Generalitat. This was exciting for me partly because it was my first actuación with the Castellers del Poble Sec and also my first non-university actuación. It felt really cool to be there in the center of the city, in such an historic place, with the plaça completely full of people watching and even the mayor looking out over the balcony of the Ajuntament. I could have imagined we were in the 16th century as we paraded from Plaça Nova, behind the cathedral and through a narrow street with gargoyles looking down at us, then each made a pilar before officially entering the plaça with a pilar caminant (a walking pillar, which I had never participated in before!). I found it both cool and very amusing that we got to leave our bags and things inside the Ajuntament building, which I had never been inside before, even though they give official tours fairly frequently!

My colla, Poble Sec, got to start off the actuación by making another pilar right in front of the balcony of the Ajuntament, from where the mayor and others lowered a faixa with a loop tied on the end and proceeded to pull the top two members of the pilar up onto the balcony! I have to admit, I was a little jealous of Arnau, the 8-year-old enxaneta who was the first one pulled up - it looked like a lot of fun! Apparently they rotate every year between collas as to which one gets to do it, so it was cool that this happened to be Poble Sec's year. After that, each of the collas except for Sagrada Familia, which I believe was missing key members due to illness or injury, proceeded with the traditional three rounds of castells and one round of pilars at the end. Everyone did well, although we were the only ones to have a castell fall. It was our third one, a 3d6 aixecat per sota, which means it was the kind that is lifted up from the ground one tier at a time, rather than having people climb. The frustrating part is that the lifting, which is normally the tricky part, went perfectly, but then when the enxaneta was passing over the acotxador she went a bit too fast and tipped the whole pom de dalt off balance - and in a flash, they all came tumbling down. No one got hurt, as we were all there in the pinya to catch them, but it was a shame to have such an otherwise-pretty castell only count as carregat, not descarregat. The other two castells we made were a torre de 6 (torres, or towers, have two people in each tier and are thus somewhat less stable and harder than 3s, 4s, or 5s) and a 5d6. According to a newspaper article I read, the Castellers de Barcelona had the best actuación points-wise, even though they had an intent desmuntat of a 5d7 in the third round, meaning that they took the castell down before it was completed because for some reason one of the canalla (the little kids) couldn't climb all the way up. They got to repeat it afterwards, though, and everything went smoothly then, so I think they ended up getting the points for a 5d7 descarregat.

Our 3d6 per sota before it fell:

The best part of the day was that after the actuación, all of the Arreplegats who were there with their other collas (we have a bunch in Castellers de Barcelona and Castellers de Sants, and a couple in Sagrada Familia and Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia, as well as me in Poble Sec!) went and had lunch together, still all in our respective shirts and white pants! Here's a picture of all of us in front of the Ajuntament:It was a lot of fun to me to be able to be with Poble Sec and concentrate most of my energy on the castells we were making, but then in between look across the plaça and see my friends working hard with their collas too, and even to be able to go join in a few pinyas for other collas. My new godmother in Arreplegats, María, was there with the Castellers de Barcelona, and she lent me her mocador with the Arreplegats seal on it, so everyone would know I was an Arreplegat too!

That evening there was a correfoc, which I was extremely excited about after the one during the Mercè back in September, but, unfortunately, I got there late and it was a lot smaller than the one before, so I didn't get to see much. I found Hallie in the crowd, though, and we watched for a bit, then decided to go find dinner. We had been talking recently about how much we missed the Chinese buns they sell in Cobb at the U of C (I still do miss them!!!), and Hallie had heard about a neighborhood with lots of Chinese restaurants and grocery stores in Santa Coloma, so we decided to go check it out! We took the metro almost to the end of the red line, as Santa Coloma is sort of a suburb/almost separate town. I was still wearing my casteller attire, which was kind of embarassing but fun. However, we hadn't taken into account the fact that we had no idea where this neighborhood was in Santa Coloma, so we had no idea where to go when we got off the metro. We wandered around for a good while, getting hungry and cold (and realizing that perhaps a Sunday night was not the best time to go looking for restaurants), until we finally found a random Chinese restaurant and ate way too much (but thoroughly enjoyed it). Sadly, we didn't find Chinese buns... they're still on the to do list. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Now I'm very much back into the routine of classes - I was finally able to matriculate today! I really like both of the biology classes I'm taking, Comparative Embriology and Zoology. The professors in both seem really good. Also, my class on History of the Catalan Language is fascinating, though kind of intimidating. I've been trying to do a lot of background reading to get a better grasp on things like phonetic symbols, morphology and syntax - it's a lot of work, but I actually really enjoy learning about it. Right now I'm really excited about the fact that I'm going to Perpinyà in two days with the Arreplegats! It's our big trip of the year, and it should be a lot of fun. On Friday afternoon we have an actuación at the University of Perpinyà, and on Saturday we have a joint practice with the castellers there, the Castellers del Riberal. Plus lots of other traditional Arreplegat activities, like a costume ball, girls vs. guys castell-building contest, and baptism of novatos like me (hence my new godmother)! I'm sure I will have lots of stories to tell afterward.

Well, I'll leave you with that for now and check back in later!
Salut i castells!
-Sarah