Sant Joan in Barcelona--craziness

Bombs. Explosions. Human towers. A couple hundred thousand people plus, who knows, the Sant Joan (San Juan) festival in Barcelona was ridiculous. For a couple days before the actual festival last weekend there were random scattered bombs going off throughout the city, startling you when you were eating whether in the apartment, in restaurants, cabs, wherever and everywhere. The cabs on Saturday even drive with all of their windows up to make sure no errant bombs get tossed in by accident or on purpose it´s so widespread.

So on Saturday we started the night be seeing some of the main cultural events that kick off the festival that continues with various events for the next six weeks or so by going and seeing a couple human towers that are held each year. A flame is brought in from some relatively distant historically significant place supposedly, and after it arrives on site they carry it to the main plaza for the main showing of the human towers. There are hilarious looking hugely tall people-costumes maybe 15 feet tall carried on peoples´shoulders that march around. Thousands of very large fireworks are being continuously set off around the park during the whole event with music playing, people dancing, and a HUGE bonfire being lit that would only allow people to stand no closer than a good 100 feet, minimum, because it´s so huge and the flames are so hot. It was definitely one of, if not the, most fun time that I´ve had in Barcelona to date.

On the beach is where the hundreds of thousands of people pack themselves in. The several miles of beach is packed solid, water to buildings, with people dancing and having fireworks thrown randomly between everyone (vary dangerously I might add). We dodges a couple very close calls ourselves. Everyone stays up on the beach and hangs out all night, a good majority of which wait and watch the sunrise early in the morning. I stayed the whole night and then tried to take either a cab or the metro back to my apartment, neither of which was possible even at 7am because of the amount of people trying to do the same thing. We walked for a mile or two to find a metro that wasn´t so clogged that we could actually get on. The next day nothing is open, everyone sleeps. I followed suit.

So that was this last weekend, I´ll go ahead and post the pictures whenever I get a chance (probably a day or so from now).

I´m in Madrid right now, getting ready to go out and take part in the crazy festival that´s going on here at the moment. We didn´t plan to be here specifically for the festival, it´s an LGBT festival actually, with a couple million interesting characters coming to the city for a huge gathering. So needless to say, if you understand the acronym, it´s interesting. There are some characters around here right now for sure, wow. But I got to see the Museo del Reina Sofia today, which was awesome. I loved the Dalí exhibits and especially the TONS of cool Picasso paintings there of which Guernica was the one I was looking forward to seeing the most. Tomorrow will be the Prado for the second time this summer, a couple gardens and the Thyssen. I´ll fill you all in as soon as I get the chance, have a great weekend people!

Granada is awesome, period

So I've had another lapse with the posting, but here goes. So I went to Granada last weekend and it was by far my favorite city that I've seen in Europe so far. I mean I needed to spend more time in Florence to get a feel for it, but for now Granada's holding that place. What a city. La Alhambra, in the part of the city called the Albaicin, was one of the coolest thing's I've ever seen. The history of that spot is really interesting, with the Moorish construction and various forms of Arabic rule and the following Spanish conversions that were done after Ferdinand and Isabella took over the city in 1492. The Alhambra has some of the most amazing gardens, all fed by the still functioning system of aqueducts and natural water flow coming down from the mountains using a very ingenious system of channels throughout the entire complex. Everywhere you go you see water and vegetation, it's beautiful. The air's crisp and the place is great, all around. Check out my pictures, you'll see what I mean. It's a hike to get up there if you walk from the city, we got ridiculously sweaty, but I think it was better than taking a bus. It would've lost something without actually 'assaulting' the hill.

The Granada Cathedral was absolutely huge inside. I've been in countless cathedrals so far this summer it seems, all over the place, but that one is different. It's got five naves (two more than normal), huge towering pillars inside and is generally expansive in every way. Then the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel) is next door, which was very impressive. It was exciting to see so many little parts of history come together, from way back in about first grade all the way up through the present, right in front of my eyes. Unfortunately, our very nice guide asked us not to take any pictures in there, and he hadn't said that elsewhere, so I went ahead and followed the rules. That was where things really got interesting.

The tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella, among others, are in the Capilla Real for starters (although unfortunately ransacked and probably emptied out by Napoleon & co. circa 1810). They're relatively important figures, I suppose you would say, with reference to Spanish history, the history of Europe, and Christopher Columbus's eventual little trip across the ocean. Speaking of which, there's a statue of the exchange between Columbus and Isabella out in a public square on one of the main drags of the city. I enjoyed seeing Ferdinand's sword there as well, but my favorite thing was the little empty box that had contained Isabella's royal jewels. It seems that Isabella financed Columbus's journey (at least in part) with the jewels previously contained within. How great is that? Seriously. That whole sailing the ocean blue in 1492 thing, coming down to this little box that the lady in the tomb in the other room gave to the guy from the statue outside to go find India and happen to run into America. Again, relatively important.

So I could go on and on and on about Granada, how much I want to go back, but I won't. I have already. I only still need to mention a few more things. I got to see a Flamenco show, one of the real cultural Spanish music traditions that actually originated in Andalusia (the province Granada is located in). It was a fun night with some really fast feet and quality dancing. I enjoyed seeing the Palace of Carlos V (where they used to hold bullfights in the inner ring), and if you like tea or relaxing massages or spas (there are several local baths that are pretty famous), then this is the place to be. Also, ordering a beer or pretty much any drink in a local bar will cost you only about €2 or so (maybe $3 US) and will come with the tapa of the day for free. It's their local tradition (the history of which I don't know, sadly). If several people order drinks, you get a huge plate of tapas, and the second round of drinks will often get you whatever the secondary tapa of the day is at that bar. I found that very interesting, kind of exciting, and unbelievably cheap which is something that I have not experienced elsewhere this summer. At all. Anywhere.

So again, I've posted a new round of pictures for you to check out; the link's off to the side if you haven't noticed it yet. I've already experienced yet another exciting event this last weekend here in Barcelona, but I'm running extremely long, so I'll have to keep you waiting in suspense for another day.

Wine tasting, Sitges, & football

Since Italy I've gotten to do a few other cool things along the way. Last Friday I took a nice little tour about an hour southwest of Barcelona to Penedés to visit the huge Codorníu winery that's down there. They've got a HUGE place with tunnels everywhere underground and millions of wine bottles, literally. Sparkling wine's not my favorite, but they've got some good cavas there. I'm not positive, but either that site or Codorníu in general has got something to do with the origins of the cava. The place had been there for a good 400 years or something so it wouldn't surprise me.

Afterwards our group took about another hour trip over to Sitges to hang out at or around the beaches there. Other than a good restaurant and the beach, I went and checked out the little corridors around the cool looking cathedral that faces the beach. It was another interesting and relaxing day, although ridiculously hot by the beach.

Then last Saturday FC Barcelona played Espanyol here in town, so I made it to my only soccer game of the summer. It was sweet!...until the 90th minute, literally, when Espanyol scored the tying goal. Their fans had already left in disgust for the most part, and they ended up tying the game. It was awesome getting to see them play, Ronaldinho was out from a red card the previous week but I got to see Eto'o and Messi. Messi actually scored both goals.

I've got almost all of the pictures posted finally, it's just really slow at uploading them all. This weekend's bringing a 3-day trip down to Granada which I'm really excited for so I'll have some more stories and pictures to come in a few days. I hope you all have a great weekend, talk to you soon!

Birds

I know it's a relative normality in big cities, but I'm not a big city guy as life would have it, but I like the birds everywhere. Walking into a crowded little path packed with birds and having them move out of the way just barely in time is always amusing. And sitting in the park across from my place, hearing the little purring those things put out, watching the occasional parrot-like birds stop by for a minute, and seeing the fat ones chasing around the skinnier guys trying to find the food on the ground in an already picked-clean patch of path. Funny and amusing stuff, I like it.

So here's the site where I've posted my pictures, check 'em out:
http://s105.photobucket.com/albums/m218/seaninbtown/

There's a ton there and I rarely even take pictures. Plenty more to come.

Italia!

Ohhh Italy, what a weekend. Attempting to say things in Italian: Roma, Firenze, ciao, scuse (spelled wrong, and probably said wrong too, but we had to say excuse me quite a bit) and come si dice were used early and often. There was also a massive overuse of the phrase "when in Rome", but we cut that out after a day or so. I and four other people made the trip, no plans and just a couple days notice on actually booking the trip really turned out well. We showed up at 10pm with no hotel reservations and needless to say little else in the way of concrete plans other than places we wanted to go, and we pulled off the entire thing without a hitch.

Starting in Rome, we got to see the Coliseum both at night and during the day and checked out the forum next door for a bit. Those were my number one spots, which I plan to see again next month actually. Very cool. We went down the street to the Monument/museum of Vittorio Emanuele II, then into a few cathedrals (the Papal Basilica of St Mary and a couple others). We went in the Pantheon which at that moment had a cool cylindrical flow of illuminated rain coming down through the open hole in the roof which was very cool looking. By the way, there are pictures forthcoming of everything I've seen in a day or two on my photobook site/facebook.

Then we got some gelato at the most ridiculous gelato place that exists I'm fairly sure, it had a good 150 interesting and strange flavors. I had a pretty strange combo, different, but good. So afterwards we went on to the Spanish Steps at the Plaza di Spagna and joined the masses of people hanging around there. Lots of cool but very expensive shops lead off for a few blocks away from the steps, so the girls got to buy a couple things here and there. Personally, I made it out of Italy having only bought a tshirt and a cheap watch. No Italian leather shoes unfortunately.

I enjoyed the Trevi Fountain, during the day as well as at night, but I've got to say it was a LOT cooler at night. Very very good place to hang out and enjoy not walking after the LONG day of wandering the streets of Rome. That was actually just day one, so day two brought with it a trip to Florence where we spent the day trying to find a hotel (in light of the conflicting Italian national day last Saturday that had all of the hotels booked up solid) as well as heading to the surrounding hills and seeing the city from above. Florence is a beautiful city, reminding me of a smaller, calmer version of the public beauty that you see here in Barcelona. Although we didn't get to see much at all since we only had an afternoon to spend, we saw enough to know we need to go back.

Sunday's return to Rome was to see the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. The rest of my group got to see more of the sights there than I did because I spent most of the day with two of my friends from school who are on a summer project in Rome, which was SWEET. I didn't expect it to be quite so refreshing to see people from home and share travel stories and just hang out. It was just what I needed.

We ate tons and tons of unbelievably good food and tested out some of the good yet not too steeply priced wine, loving every minute of eating in Italy. I think the food is what I miss the most honestly. Maybe that's because the Spanish cafe-type pastry, small baguette, tapa-appetizer style of eating doesn't fit my American need for large quantities of solid chunks of food at all times. It's strange to me that a trip to Italy would be what made me feel at home.

I didn't see what I saw with as much depth as I wanted, but thus is a trip including two cities in three days. But I can now effectively navigate my way around Rome and know that I want to get to know Florence, so my interest has been sparked to say the least. Amber and I get to head back that way in just over a month, perfect way to end the summer.