La Mercé Part 2

The second half of my long weekend was just as exciting as the first part. Sunday, was the first time I've left the city since arriving to Barcelona. I went with a couple friends to a seaside town 30 minutes outside the city by train. The town is called Sitges (See-chase). It is exactly how you would imagine a seaside Mediterranean town, lined with with houses and crooked streets. It is absolutely beautiful. The beach itself wasn't that impressive for me. The sand is really fine and soft and the water wasn't too cold, but that is where the magic stops. There weren't any waves really so there was no body surfing. Before going, Spanish people told me that there are a lot of gays in Sitges. I didn't really think about what that might mean, other than the possibility of seeing some dudes hold hands which really didn't bother me. What I didn't expect was very flamboyant speedos. The designs were oddly entertaining. After a few hours of getting our tan on, we returned home.

I'll talk about Monday in my next post...

Tuesday: The actual day of La Mercé was pretty awesome. I got up early and went to go see the human towers, Castellers. The name pretty much means castle makers or castle people. I was "lucky" enough to get there in time to see the "Giants Parade" which are the giant people figures that most of you have already seen the pictures of. They were cool to look at for long enough to snap a few pictures, but that whole event was really boring and way too long. Not to mention it was in Catalan, a Spanish variant that I don't speak or understand. (The "Spanish" we know is actually one of five languages spoken in Spain known as Castilian.) After an hour and a half of watching the giants, an hour into when the castellers were supposed to start, I finally saw a human tower. Each of the teams paraded in with a 1x4 tower at first. Then they started getting progressively more exciting. My friend Jazmin has tagged me on a video she posted on Facebook that displays a 5x7 tower. Notice how small the children are that go to the very top. They can't be older than 5 probably. After the castellers, I returned home, content with my Mercé experience.