L'Inici de la Primavera

Hola a tothom!

It's really feeling like spring here in Barcelona, which means perfect weather for strolling around a neighborhood in the sun or walking around barefoot at castellers practice, but not such a great motivation to stay inside and study... regardless, things are going along fairly well, both in my classes and otherwise. I really don't have much work, so I can't complain, though I have to keep reminding myself to go check out books from the library for various background readings. The only big project I'm working on is a presentation for my History of the Catalan Language class, in which I have to analyze a text from a certain region of Catalunya (or, more accurately, the linguistic domain of Catalan - my group has Mallorca) and contrast it with the standard dialect as developed by the grammaticist Pompeu Fabra and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans around the 1920s. It's a really interesting project, but a little overwhelming, just because I have basically zero previous knowledge to go on. But I've been reading a lot of articles and, little by little, learning what I need to learn... It makes me even more conscious than before of the language being spoken around me - and I mean language in the sense of the Catalan word "llenguatge" rather than "llengua" or "idioma," the register or manner of speaking rather than which language is being spoken (like when someone says, "Watch your language!"). There are a couple of Arreplegats from Mallorca, and I love hearing them use specific traits of that region, like the "article salat" ("sa" instead of "el" or "la" for the article "the" - ex. "sa gent," "sa poble" instead of "la gent," "el poble") or the form "mos" instead of "nos" or "ens" for the first person plural pronoun. Haha, now I've probably bored you all with too much grammar - it really is fascinating to me, though.

Let's see, what have I been up to since I last wrote? Well, two weekends ago was our big trip to Perpinyà with Arreplegats, which turned out to be pretty fantastic. We all had to get up reeeeally early Friday morning to go up to the Zona Universitària and bring all of our food and supplies down from our office to the bus, which was waiting in front of one of the libraries of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). I'm sure all the kids heading to class were wondering why on earth about 50 people, at least half of them already dressed in bright green shirts and white pants, were so enthusiastically rolling huge carts stacked with tomato sauce and coke bottles down the hill from one of the buildings at 8:00 in the morning... Anyway, once we finally got loaded up and under way we got to Perpinyà pretty quickly, stopping only once at a gas station to go to the bathroom, give the people who had forgotten to bring food for the potluck dinner that night the chance to buy something, and make the obligatory pilar de 4 in the parking lot.

We arrived at the University of Perpinyà around 12 and immediately had a joint actuación with the university colla there, the Mangoners. They're a very small and new group, but were really enthusiastic and welcoming, which was fun. We each made 3 rounds of castells separately and then did a couple of joint castells, with castellers from both groups together. Because we had less people than we would have at an actuación in Barcelona, we couldn't make any castells of 7 stories, but we successfully made a 5 de 6, torre de 6 (2 people per story), and 4 de 6 amb l'agulla. The most exciting of these for me was the 5d6, because it was my debut as a baixa "a plaça" - in a real castell during an actuación, that is! That's right, I had 5 stories of people standing directly on top of me! I have to admit, it was harder than I expected it to be, even though I had been baixa for castells of 5 stories in practice. The one extra story made a big difference - it hurt my shoulders, but, more than that, just the sheer pressure of that much weight made it physically hard to breathe. My contrafort (the person right behind me, against my back) helped me a lot, though, and together we made it. Afterwards a bunch of people came up and gave me hugs and congratulated me. My "godmother," Maria, asked me exactly where I had been, and when I told her which direction I had been facing she realized that she had been in my rengla, the column of people directly above me - meaning she had climbed up me and neither of us had realized it at the time! It was a good actuación, even if it wasn't one of our biggest; it felt good to be back in the plaça with my Arreplegats.

Group photo: Arreplegats in green (of course), Mangoners in white:

Afterwards we headed to the headquarters of the Castellers del Riberal, the conventional team of the area (a.k.a. not from the university), where we were staying. They had a really nice space, with a big central area for practicing/eating, a kitchen, a bathroom with showers, and two smaller rooms where we put out sleeping bags and slept. Once we settled in, some of us got restless and started making pilars (the normal solution for boredom - hey, we are castellers, after all!), so we ended up having an impromptu practice that afternoon.

Practice at the local of the Castellers del Riberal:

Friday night was kind of crazy but a lot of fun, involving lots of music and dancing, baptism of novatus (including me! I'm an officially baptized Arreplegada now!!), surprise games organized by a few old-timers who came along even though they're not in the university anymore, etc... We also voted for L'Hereu and La Pubilla, which are positions that originally referred to the eldest son and daughter of a Catalan family who traditonally inherited the land/property, and now are sort of like Prom King and Queen, as far as I could tell from everyone's explanations - and I got elected La Pubilla! It was very exciting (and funny, since I still didn't quite know what it was when they announced that I had won it). I was given a ribbon with the red and yellow stripes of the Catalan flag that says "Pubilla Perpinyà 2009" on it to wear around my chest all night, and at random times throughout the weekend people came up to me and said, "Visca la Pubilla!" Oh man, I love Arreplegats...

Most of the day Saturday was devoted to napping, playing volleyball in the parking lot, reading the latest issue of the colla's magazine, the Arreplegator, and generally recovering from the night before (though an intrepid group not including me went into town to a rugby game all afternoon!). Around 7:00 in the evening the Castellers del Riberal showed up and we had a joint official practice. Afterwards we all had dinner together, then we had the annual - and very dramatic - guys vs. girls castell-building contest. After much negotiating we decided on a points system and that there would be 3 rounds of castells and a round of pilars, like a normal actuación. Clearly I was for the girls, but I have to say I ended up being incredibly impressed by the castells everyone made. Objectively the guys won with a 3 de 6 per sota, 4 de 6 amb l'agulla, 4 de 6 net (no pinya!) and AWESOME pilar de 5 amb folre (a folre is a second tier of pinya supporting the pilar from on top of the pinya!). However, the girls also did really well with a 3 de 6, 4 de 6, pilar de 4 net, and a history-making 3 de 6 amb l'agulla, the first time that castell had ever been descarregat (completed) by Arreplegats! It's both pretty amusing and inspiring that our girls or guys alone can make bigger castells than some other entire collas ... just think about what we can do together!

I came back from Perpinyà early Sunday morning to go to a small actuación with Poble Sec in Barcelona, thus missing the cooking of the traditional enormous paella, which tragically got knocked over and half-spilled everywhere (it really was tragic - I've seen pictures :) ). All in all it was a great weekend, and it left me even more proud and grateful to be an Arreplegat, as well as excited about our potential for this spring. Now we're really buckling down in practice and trying to get everyone extra-motivated to prepare for our spring Diada, which will be May 8th. We're working towards some pretty amazing castells - the 4 de 8, the 3 de 7 per sota, and the 3 de 7 amb l'agulla - which have never been made by university collas before. I don't want to jinx anything, because all of them will take a lot of work in the next two months and we're certainly not there yet, but I think we're on a roll. After Perpinyà, I think everyone can feel it. We've got the excitement; now we need to calm our jitters a little bit and really focus during the practices we have left.

Changing the subject slightly, while things are clearly going well with Arreplegats, this last week I've really enjoyed the time I've spent with Poble Sec. Last weekend was the inter-casteller soccer tournament, organized and hosted by the Castellers de Sants, which we played in. I think we ranked 11th out of around 30 collas, which isn't too bad I supposed, but the best thing was that we won the prize for best fan group! We really went all out, with a bunch of people (including guys) dressed up like cheerleaders with short white skirts and pompoms, lots of big signs, and a choreographed routine to our own version of "Mamma Mia!" ("Mare Meva!" in Catalan) courtesy of the 10-year-old girls of our canalla. I didn't dress up, but I went to cheer, and ended up having a really great time and staying all day. It was a great way to get to know a lot of the colla that I had never really talked to before.

Cheering at the soccer tournament (I'm the one in the black t-shirt and not wearing a miniskirt!):

After that, I was really looking forward to our practices this week, and they didn't let me down - I got to climb up to the second story in trial runs for the 4 de 6 and 4 de 7 on both Tuesday and Friday! I was pleased with how well it went both days - not that it was easy, but I did it and felt fairly competent. I was reminded again of how important the psychological factor is; I think the thing I did best was just to stay calm and keep mentally going over all the little things I needed to do (look straight ahead, raise your elbows, flex your knees a little, point your toes, don't lean inward, etc.). I might get a chance to climb up to the third story (Mom, I know that makes you nervous!), because on Friday I was doing an espatllera (practice pilar when everyone is holding onto a wall/pole) and climbed up to the third story on top of Benet, one of our caps de colla, who seemed very impressed afterwards and asked me how much I weighed (not an impertinent question in the world of castellers, since it makes a difference to the people you climb on top of!).

We also had a special practice for pinyas on Thursday, which I enjoyed a lot, even though I didn't climb in anything, since the point was to practice the foundation of the castell. Hector, one of the members of the tècnica, drew a diagram of a pinya in chalk on the ground, and we spent a good while just going over each of the different positions, taking turns explaining to each other the things we each knew how to do well and asking questions. Then we put it all together and made several pinyas very carefully, paying better attention to every step than normally happens during practice. I enjoyed it a lot because I felt like we were really working as a team, learning how to communicate and each be aware not only of our job but of the jobs of the people around us and how we could help them. We went to dinner nearby afterwards, which was also a lot of fun. I'm definitely glad I joined Poble Sec, even though I won't get to spend as much time in the colla - I've having a really good time getting to know a conventional colla as well.

Uff, that was a lot to say! Well, I hope you've enjoyed it - I'll keep you all updated as to how things progress. Two weeks from today is a big actuación with Poble Sec, called Santa Madrona, and then the next week two friends from Nashville, Hunter Claire and Elisabeth, come to visit... lots to do but should be fun! Plus I hope to spend even more time sitting in plaças and/or at the beach as the weather gets warmer! :) I suppose I'll find time to study somewhere in there...fins aviat!

Salut i castells!
-Sarah

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

Oops! Forgot!

See, I knew I would forget something! Just for the fun of it, I wanted to post a couple of pictures from practice with Arreplegats last week - guess which one is me! I'm definitely getting strong shoulders here!

I haven't completely forgotten about my blog!

Hola a tothom,

First of all, let me apologize for how long I've let this slide - it's kind of turned into a quarterly at this point, which wasn't my intention, but which I was afraid would happen... Anyway, in an effort to catch up somewhat, I will try to give a brief summary of the most important things I've been doing since I last wrote.

December:
Classes finished for vacations and my parents came to visit on the 18th, which also happened to be the day of the anniversary of the Arreplegats, meaning that we hosted a big diada to which all the other university casteller teams were invited (and attended). It was really awesome that my parents got to be there to see it, even though they were really jetlagged and I'm sure it was kind of an overwhelming way to be welcomed to a country. Several people came up to me during or after the actuación and asked me who they were, and when I said they were my parents, several times I got the response, "Oh! They looked like Americans!", which made me laugh... It was a fantastic anniversary - we rocked the actual castells with a 3d7, 4d7 amb agulla (pillar in the middle of the castell), 5d7 and vano de 5, which means 3 simultaneous pillars, one of 5 in the middle flanked by 2 of 4, one on either side! Afterward we had lunch ("lunch" - it was about 5 or 5:30 by the time we ate) with all the collas, then there was dancing to traditional Catalan music and much revelry. They also handed out the PAPAs - Premis Alternatius Pels Arreplegats, or Alternative Prizes for Arreplegats - and I was thrilled to win Novata Més Implicada (Most Involved Newcomer)! I was very proud.

My parents and I left Barcelona on the 22nd, I believe, and headed by train towards Vic, a smallish city to the north. We didn't actually stay in Vic, though, but in a parador outside of it that was an old farmhouse/noble's house. It was absolutely beautiful, both the building and (especially) the location, as it was perched on a mountain/cliff overlooking a big lake that had been made by damming a river and flooding the valley. There used to be a town there, and you could still see the clocktower sticking up above the water! The landscape was so different than around Barcelona - wilder and a bit harsher, but beautiful. We were there through the 26th, and we spent a lot of time walking all around the area, including one day to a ruin of an Iberian settlement outside of a town called Folgueroles (which also happened to be the birthplace of a famous Catalan poet, Jacint Verdaguer) and to a nearby monastery in the rain/sleet/snow - that was an adventure! We had a great time, though. On Christmas Eve I introduced my parents to the Catalan tradition of the Caga Tió, which is basically a log with a face painted on one end and a red Catalan stocking cap (barretina) that brings presents to kids. It's fairly hilarious - the tradition goes that you feed the Tió during the days before Christmas and then cover him up well with a blanket to let him get fat, and then on Christmas Eve the kids sing a song and hit him with a stick to make him poop out presents and treats, which magically appear under the blanket when they lift it up! Oh, Catalans...

After Vic we took the train down to València for a few days. It was a really pretty city, with a very different feel than Barcelona, which kind of surprised me. We walked around a lot there too, even though it rained most of the time, and saw a lot of cool architecture and old towers. I had an ongoing and disheartening quest to find a book by a Valencian author, Ferran Torrent, that I really wanted to read - apparently they don't have Valencian books in Valencian bookstores (go figure). We also ate really well there, including one day when we walked down to the beach (which was quite a hike from our hotel) and had arroz negro, made with squid ink! Possibly my favorite meal, though, was one night when we found this tiny little restaurant by accident that had maybe one other couple eating there. I had no idea what most of the things on the menu were, so I talked to the waiter, who said he could make us basically any kind of paella/rice dish we wanted. We settled on seafood - I wasn't clear on what kind of seafood we would get, but I was sure it would be good - and he went into the kitchen to make it! It was absolutely delicious, and just a really cool experience. We felt almost like we were guests in someone's home.

We came back to BCN on New Year's Eve, which I spent at the TresA, the friends association for the Arreplegats (Associació d'Amics dels Arreplegats = AAA, or tres "A"s, hence the name). It was a lot of fun - we had dinner, then watched the clock strike twelve on TV and ate a grape for every hour struck (another Catalan tradition). Then we toasted to the new year with cava and proceeded to celebrate into the wee hours, being ridiculous as we are known to be, singing lots of Arreplegat songs accompanied by noisemakers, etc. I got home early in the morning, slept for about 4 or 5 hours, then, since the 1st was Thursday - what else? - went to castellers practice at 2:00! There were only about 10 of us that showed up, but we had a great time trying as many different constructions as we could with those of us who were there. I got to learn how to be acotxador and enxaneta (probably the only time I'll ever do it)!! Afterwards, as we miraculously still had energy left, we decided to go up to La Foixarda, on Montjuic, and go rock climbing! There's an old tunnel there that they've closed off and put lights and handholds in that's great for bouldering, and there are a bunch of normal routes on the rocks around it. Several people brought equipment and we all shared harnesses, ropes, etc. It was cool to remember how to do it - I hadn't gone rock climbing since I was about 16, I think - at the same time that I was learning the terms in Catalan. Definitely an awesome way to kick of 2009.

January:
Let's see - after my parents left on the 6th, I had a couple of chill weeks going to class at the UAB and studying for my history exam, which was on the 20th. The most exciting thing that happened during that period of time was that I went one Saturday with several other Arreplegats to climb a nearby mountain called Matagalls with snowshoes! We had originally planned to go rock climbing again, but on a real mountain near a town called Siurana, but it had been snowing so much (in the mountains, not in Barcelona!) that we couldn't get there easily. We decided to go to Matagalls instead, which is in the Montseny Natural Park, between the cities of Vic and Granollers. We left Barcelona really early Saturday morning in the rain, which didn't bode well, but by the time we got up to the parking lot and trailhead it had turned into beautiful, thick snow! I had rented snowshoes and poles and borrowed various items of waterproof clothing, fortunately. It was a more challenging climb than I expected - some of our group decided to stop halfway and do a shorter, easier route - but I really enjoyed it. Four of us went all the way to the peak - me, Ubi, Vitxi, and Pol - and were treated with an incredible view when the snow stopped and the clouds briefly cleared away. We didn't stay up there long, though, because it was really cold and getting late. Vitxi and I started down with our snowshoes, but Pol and Ubi had brought skis up in order to ski down. We kept expecting them to pass us, but they never did - we hadn't taken into account the fact that Ubi had never skied before! At one point we passed a couple of other skiers we had seen earlier and Vitxi asked them if they had seen our friends. They replied basically, "Oh, those two? They're still way up there!" We weren't too worried, though we had to laugh. When we got to the bottom we found the others who had done the shorter route and were going to wait for Ubi and Pol, but, unfortunately, the mossos d'esquadra (Catalan local police) had come and were threatening to give everyone a ticket if we didn't move our cars, as apparently we were blocking the snow plow. So we quickly packed up and had to circle the mountain for a bit until Pol and Ubi finally got down and we could pick them up. We finished off the night by driving into Granollers to eat fast food for dinner and go bowling, at which I handily won! All in all a very fun excursion.

At the end of January, Becca came to visit from Chicago, which was a lot of fun. We took a very early flight to La Coruña, in Galicia, the day after she arrived, and spent a few days exploring there. They say it always rains in Galicia, but I think we had it worse than normal - it was ridiculously windy, hailed on us various times and rained in really strong bursts that came at fairly regular intervals but never gave us enough time to get anywhere between them. So basically we got used to being soaking wet most of the time... we had fun, though, regardless. I really enjoyed visiting Santiago de Compostela one day, which is the town at the end of the Camino de Santiago, an old pilgrimage route that I would love to hike some day. Becca really wanted to go to the Pilgrimage Museum, but, sadly, it was closed... The weather was much nicer once we got back to Barcelona, and we got to spend a lot of time walking around the city. We also went to Tarragona one day, which I really liked, and saw lots of Roman ruins. I love getting to know different parts of Spain and Catalunya! Possibly my other favorite part of Becca being here was going to watch the Superbowl in a bar called Cheers, which played it on a British TV channel, with 3 Catalan guys (Arreplegats, of course) who knew nothing about American football! Quite an experience - I didn't end up watching the game very closely, though, because I kept getting into involved explanations of how many points a field goal is worth or the difference between a "sack" and a "sock". Oh man... :)

Well, now it's February and things are fairly back to normal. Two out of four of my classes have started, and the other two start on Monday. I'm really excited about one I'm taking called History of the Catalan Language - the professor is really awesome and the subject really interesting. I think we're going to spend some time in local archives analyzing original Catalan texts, which is really cool! My schedule has returned to having three main elements - class, coffee with friends, and castellers practices - and I have to say I like it that way. I've started going to practices with the Castellers del Poble Sec, a small team in my neighborhood. They practice at night on Tuesdays and Fridays, so it doesn't conflict with anything. I really like the chance to get more practice and be involved in different ways - they have a canalla of little kids as well as all ages of adults, so I play a slightly different role than with Arreplegats, when we're all closer to the same size - and the people seem really nice so far. I've only gone to two practices, but I think I'll stick with it. We have an actuación this Sunday for the Festa de Santa Eulàlia, which is really exciting because we'll be in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, in the middle of the city, between the Ajuntament and the Generalitat! I'll definitely put up pictures afterward.

So that's more or less it for now - I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, but at least it's a start, oi? I will try to be more disciplined about writing - hope you all enjoy it!

Salut i castells!
-Sarah

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!