Wow, you must really actually care if you've read the other posts and are still reading. I'm sorry to throw so much on the blog at once-- there was just so much going on this month. The next weekend, the 21-24 September, was the Festival de la Merce, Barcelona's biggest festival of the year which made the other celebrations we'd seen look pretty paltry.
The festival has something to do with Barcelona's patron saint, Merce, saving the city from some form of devastation. In gratitude, the city spends four or five days doing everything it can to party non-stop. I don't think the natives actually even know why the festival is held other than because you need to do something fun at the end of summer.
There were thirteen large stages set up throughout the city center with concerts going until about 1am every night. If you ventured out to the Forum, a little outside of the city center, there were three or four more stages with concerts going from 8pm to 5am every night. In addition to the concerts other events throughout the city included circus acts, wine tasting, carnival rides, boat rides, parades, dance performances, and free open museums. And that's not any of the really cool stuff.
Every night at the marina they had fireworks shows done by groups from different countries. We caught France's show on Friday night. Fireworks here are much better than in the States because they don't worry so much about things like safety. There were times that the firework sparks were going off right down to the ground. But as it turned out Friday's fireworks were nothing in comparison to Monday's. More on that later.
The rest of the night we wandered from concert to concert. One thing I've noticed around here (for those of you who want to know what the culture is like) is that people don't let things like having children stop them from partying. There were people out with their strollers until we went home around 1am. I'm just so used to people being anxious to put their children on a schedule and not disrupt it but I can't see how that would even be possible in some places here with so much going on outside. It's hard enough for Andrew and I to gind a regular s leep schedule.
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2 comments:
Wish I could see the event, although I don't like staying up so late. Do they have an "early riser" version? Maybe that's the same as the "never go to bed" version.
Love, Dad
As far as we can figure out the sleep schedule here goes something like go to bed at 2am on a weeknight, get up at about 9am, go to work until 1pm, come home and sleep for three mor hours until 4pm, then go back to work until 8pm, and finallydinner at 10 or 11pm.
Weekend schedule is something more like stay out until 3am, if it's an early night, or 8am on a late night and then go to bed until 2pm. It really is funny how many families you see out until midnight or 1am with little kids. I guess the afternoon siesta makes it all possible.
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