Helena's Super Secret Ninja Missions

La Merce is this huge festival that Barcelona has annually. The official day of the festival is the 24th of September, but the activities really start much earlier, and there are tons of events to attend. In times like this, I really wish there were more than one of me. Warning: this is a really long post. Also, here's a shout-out to C and B, who apparently read and discuss my blog despite the fact that they are also here. 

On Thursday, after two exams, I went off to a flamenco concert in Avinguda de la Catedral, which was excellent. The next morning, I woke up early to see the castellers, the giants, and the Barcelona beasts in Placa de Sant Jaume. Anyway I took an obscene amount of pictures. Here´s one of the giants:

Fun fact: some parents allow their children urinate in the placa. They then proceeded to splash water on the urine; I was actually a few feet away when this occurred on Friday. On the bright side, nearby Placa de Sant Jaume, there is a lovely gelato place that seems to share my love for Nutella.

The jars were gigantic! However I was vastly disappointed when they told me that they do not actually put Nutella in any of the gelato (it goes on waffles, which I suppose is still good).

After attempting to take a siesta, I went off again to Parc de la Ciutadella, which was absolutely gorgeous! It's generally lovely as is, but on Friday, there were flower lampposts and the ambiance was somehow different. The sunset was beautiful--it would have been great as a desktop background (to be used on my laptop in a few months, when I feel homesick for Barcelona).

I actually seem to spend an abnormal amount of time photographing lampposts.

Anyway, there was a great dance performance by the AcroRollers, who rapped, danced, and showed off on their rollerblades.We also saw this amazing aerial acrobatics show by the Voala Project from Argentina. There was a crane that lifted their trapeze in the air (if you click on the link, there's pictures!). However, we didn't stick around for the entire show because we wanted to get delicious (chocolate and hazelnut/banana) crepes before going off to Barceloneta Beach for the Fireworks Festival competition (it was France's turn). Afterwards, we returned to the park to see a laser show in which I felt as if I were standing in a vortex.

The crepes were much more expensive than they would have been outside the park, but they were completely worth it!

On Saturday, we took a day trip to Sitges, which is this gorgeous little beach town only 30 minutes away from Barcelona. We had delicious gelato--I chose to have Rocher (as in Ferraro) and another flavor that was something along the lines of carapina. Unfortunately I don't remember what the flavor was called-it was in Catalan. Obviously I need to at least study food vocabulary. Pictures are below!

Here´s a lovely picture of Sitges!

This was taken at the bar of the Romantic Hotel.

They took us to Casa Bacardi (yes, that Bacardi), where our tour guide was sixth generation Bacardi.

They taught us how to make the perfect mojito. Clearly that's a must-have skill.

The beach was great; the sand was so fine and the waves were lovely.

After a bit, A and I rushed back to Barcelona to make it in time for Correfoc, or Fire Run, which was surprisingly intense. We were slightly unprepared, or at least less so than the other spectators we saw; the amount of gear that the others were wearing was rather off-putting, so we left early to get to the OK Go concert, which I enjoyed immensely. Belle and Sebastian performed afterward (I'd never heard of them before but now I´m definitely a fan). Then we hopped on the Metro to get to Placa Espanya for Festa Maxima. I was surprised to see people who looked about 13 years old, partying at midnight. Another thing that raised an eyebrow was the fact that people were dancing on the bus stop awning. It was actually wobbling the whole time, and I half expected someone to fall.

On Sunday, I managed to wake up relatively early to check out the sardana competition by Jaume I.

The sardana is a dance typical of Catalunya.

Then I walked over to Parc de la Ciutadella (I was actually trying to get to Urquinaona, but since I don't enjoy using maps, I walked in the wrong direction), where I took the pictures shown in the beginning of this post. While I was there, I saw this crazy contraption shown below.

There were three men playing instruments (one played saxophone and clarinet, the others played drums and bass) and two others that controlled the movement of this...machine.

Later on, I saw Tenane perform. This group is comprised of the women who danced with the Acrorollers on Friday. In the words of E, it was intense.

A while later, we took the Metro and a bus to Montjuic, which was incredible.

Here's a picture of a man lifting his coworker in the air. They were hilarious!

I had a delicious croissant while watching another performance involving fire... However, one of my favorite events was a crazy performance involving a swinging trapeze.

This is a picture of one of the performers, just rolling around on his giant metal hoop. It looked like a lot of fun, but I´m sure if I tried that, I´d just fall flat on my face. Literally.

After that event, we headed back over to Placa Espana for Piromusical, a very popular fireworks show that is put to (American) music. Although it was ridiculously crowded (even more so than any of the other events), I enjoyed it--especially since having people around me kept me warm (I neglected to bring a sweater or anything of the sort).

Here's to la Merce! Now I love Barcelona even more than I did before.