Gracia Festival & F.C. Barcelona

PART 1
Over the course of the summer just about every other neighbourhood in Barcelona, and the surrounding towns, celebrates by throwing an annual festival. The amount of effort put into each one varies, but in general it’s astounding how elaborate the decorations are for almost all of them. One of the most famous ones in downtown Barcelona is called Festa Gracia, and I was lucky to spend 2 days taking in this experience. You may have already heard a little about this through Jenn Hedayat’s blog (see link), but while she saw much of the beginning of the festival, I was only able to catch the events at the end of the week long event.

The first night was a Friday night, and I wandered the streets of the Gracia neighbourhood with my flatmates, Karolina and Bartek. We found lots of people salsa dancing, tons of live samba and jazz music, and even a couple of spanish punk/ska bands. There arout 20 or so streets which have been decorated, each around a different theme, and it was so much fun to walk down each one of them and take in the atmosphere. Here are some pictures of my favourite ones.

At noon on Sunday we went to a square in Gracia where Castellers were performing, which are 'human castles'. These were amazing, but scary to watch as I was so afraid that someone would fall (especially the 5 or 6 year old girls who's role it was it climb to the very top). I was extremely impressed with the strength, focus, and balance of each team who's trust in one another was essential to completing the tower. I don't think these pictures actually capture how incredibly high these structures of people were. I found myself holding my breath as the last people climbed to the top and completed the tower and started to come back down. Just amazing! While I really like this event, and it gave me dejavue back to the grease pole climbing days (Queen's Eng.), I'm still not sure if I agree with having such young children involved. Regardless, what a tradition,...

Correfoc. This event is absolutely insane, and I wish I knew how it had developed into such a typical spanish tradition. This craziness involves about a hundred or so people dressed as devils/toros (bulls), completely clothed from head to toe, carrying large staffs with sparkler firecrackers attached at the top. These people dance through the street spraying everyone, themselves and all of the spectators, with sparks. Every 2 seconds a loud bang goes off right beside you, that never fails to make me jump even if I know it's coming. Between each group of sparkler twirlers there's a great drum band that you can't help but dance to. Also they have some large floats of dragons or other animals which are rigged with more firecrackers that they light and spin around in the middle of the street. The atmosphere is very exciting, and so entertaining! I went to the Gracia festival correfoc last Sunday, and then I saw some of the Sants festival correfoc last night as it started in the park right behind my building. People here are just obsessed with firecrackers and apparently there are no restrictions on where and when you can set them off,...

PART 2
Should you visit Barcelona in the near future (mum take note) there are a few areas in which you should know the basics, and at the top of that list is futbol (aka soccer). Because of this my coworkers have taken it upon themselves to give me a crash course, and I’ve decided to pass on to you the main points that I’ve picked up.

#1: Barcelona has 2 futbol teams: F.C. Barcelona (Barca for short), and RCD Espanol. If you support F.C. Barcelona then you’re called a ‘Culé’, and if you support RCD Espanol then you’re ‘Periquitos ’. Also if you’re the arch rival and you support Real Madrid, then you’re a ‘Merengue’. (tickets to a game against Madrid is vitually impossible to get)

#2: The Barce team colours are Red and Blue, and the jersey’s are vertical strips of these two colours.

#3: In my opinion, if you need to know any name in this sport it’s Ronaldinho. He’s a Brazilian player on Barce’s team, and is probably the current best player in the world. He’s the most entertaining to watch on the field, not only because of his fancy footwork and perfect plays, but because he always has a smile on his face and you can tell he loves what he’s doing. This is the name that you’ll see on the back of just about every single Barca jersey.

#4: The home stadium of F.C. Barcelona is called Camp Nou, which can seat 100,000 people in total. (see pics below)

Okay, this past Tuesday I joined about 20 other iaeste trainees for a match at Camp Nou of F.C. Barcelona verses F.C. Bayern Munich. This specific game was the annual 'Gamper Cup' which is a single annual match, originally started by the man Gamper who owns the club and selects the team. Each year it's against a different club, and it's technically a 'friendly' game.

We arrived at Camp Nou at around 7:30 and we were up in our seats, very high up! :) by around 8pm. They were lots of fire works as each member of the Barca team was introduced at around 9:30pm and then the game finally started at 10:15. Two 45 minute halfs. The first goal was scored by Ronaldinho in a penalty kick; he makes it look so easy; as if it takes no effort what-so-ever. 2 more goals were scored in the first half, and then one more in the second half, making the final score 4-0 for Barcelona! What a game. My first, and hopefully not my last.