Barcelona study abroad Summer 2011: Day 16/Castellars training

I really need to get back in the groove of writing blogs the day of because I am not sure where to start. I finally went out to lunch before class yesterday with my roommate. Nothing special though, just pizza. I got the Margherita pizza and she got the Mexicana. I keep having good intentions to wake up and get lunch before class, but it isn't going well so far. There is this one place underneath the school with all-you-can-eat buffet of salad and meat and kebabs and drinks and dessert for only around 10 Euros. Apparently the exchange rate got a LOT better yesterday which is great. The only problem is that I withdrew money the night before it happened, so I lost more money than I should have. DRATS! Oh well, the past is in the past. After classes, I had some time to kill so I went with some friends to a Spanish restaurant with tacos and burritos and guacomole! It's hard to believe that this is only the first or second restaurant of this sort that I have seen over here. What a tragedy! I can't wait until Dollar Tacos at "The Islands" when I get back. It was good and fast too, so I will definitely be going here again before I leave. After I ate my nachos and guac, I left to go to the Casteller excursion. Very few people signed up for it originally (I even signed up late) and even more decided that they didn't want to go a few hours before. So, there were maybe 15 of us (that's a high guess) that hopped on a metro and met up to go check out this human tower structure. We got to the place and watched a 10-15 minute video on the art of Castell. This sport originated in Catolonia and was banned for some time during the Franco era, but is making its way back onto the scene. The video stated that almost 90% of Catalonia is familiar with or has seen a Castellers tower at least once in their life. The way that they were erected was incredible, seeming to go higher and higher each time. It starts off with a ground level of a bunch of people for stability, and then the second level of fewer people climbs on their shoulders. This process continues all the way to the top, with fewer (and smaller/younger) people at each level. When the structure is near completion, the smallest person in the group (which is always a very young child, looking to be no older than 6 or 7) climbs to the top and climbs over the highest point. There are no ropes or safety equipment involved in this sport, except for helmnets for the children. All of them look like little monkeys fluently climbing to the top of the jungle and back down again. I was a little skeptical at first because we weren't allowed to participate in the training, only watch. But it was still really cool, and they weren't even going nearly as high as the people in the video! They did a practice run or 2 inside the building where there was a net, but then they moved outside and put on a show for us. There are multiple ways to construct one, and they tried to give us visuals of each. The focus and balance of everybody involved was amazing and I think that the people involved in this art form pass the tradition onto their children and their children's children because there were people from all ages doing it. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a Castell festival like in the video, where thousands of spectators and Castellars and multiple teams meet in a square and simultaneously build multiple towers to insanely high heights (40 feet, easily) and reach the balconies of huge buildings nearby. After we left, somebody got my hopes up about a restaurant with Taco Tuesdays (aka dollar tacos), but they couldn't come through in the clutch so I had to resort to a microwavable dinner leftover ribs. After dinner, I unsuccessfully tried to take a nap before we went out with a bunch of the people on the program. We went to Pipperment's (a bar that was very out of the ordinary) and practically took it over. We were the only people there for at least an hour, so of course we had a good time. Their claim to fame is the size of their beverages, mainly the BIGGEST drink glasses that you will probably ever find, from 1 Liter to 13 Liter drinks. Getting a bunch of friends together and splitting a 13 Liter seemed like the thing to do and only took about 20 or 30 minutes, so that's what everybody did. The straws were HUGE (you could probably shoot spitballs a mile in these bad boys) and the glass that it came in looked like a championship trophy. When you are trying to fit 12+ people around one glass and only 8 or so seats, things get interesting. But fun, nonetheless. We left here around 1:15am because we had a reservation for 20 people at the Ice Bar(celona) where everything was made of ice! The drinks came in frozen glasses (made of ice), that people tried to eat after finishing their drink, there was an ice sculpture of Sagrada Familia, a bench made of ice that was covered with some animal skin, an ice table, a bar that was made of ice, and even a framed FC Barcelona jersey. The actual attraction was just a small room, but definitely large enough for us to do stupid dance moves and act a fool together. And seeing as how Barcelona is so humid (the weather is close to what it is in Wilmingtown, but the breeze might be better here), going into a sub-zero temperature room was a great idea. Luckily they give you a huge arctic jacket and gloves though or else the story could have been different. I am glad that i'm not a girl because they weren't able to bear the temperature the whole time, with their sandals and dresses, so they had to take breaks while the fellas were nice and warm in our long-sleeves and jeans. If you ever have the chance to go to the Ice Bar, then I would definitely recommend it because it is an experience like no other. I love things that are out of the ordinary and doing things that you can't do anywhere else!
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castell