Last weekend I finally got a chance to visit Fell again and had the MOST AMAZING weekend! In Barcelona there was a festival called La Merce going on. I'm not really sure what it was celebrating but throughout the weekend they had different events going on in different parts of the city.

Our adventure began on Friday night around midnight when I got to Barce. Fell picked me up at the train station and we dropped my stuff off at her apartment and then went out to see what was going on. There were a few concerts going on in some of the plazas so we listened to music for a while.

Then we just walked around the streets of Barcelona and eventually came to where a group of people were hanging out, playing music and chatting. We ended up spending a few hours there and I got to meet people from all over the world (Brazil, Morocco, Ghana, France, ect). I ended up having a conversation with a guy from Ghana that made me feel really encouraged/happy/special. I won't get into too much detail, but I have always wanted to go to Africa and spend time there learning just like I'm doing here. But for some reason I have always thought that Africans have a particular image of or attitude toward African Americans. blah blah blah...anyway, so I was telling this guy all of this and he was just like why would you think that, we are all family ect ect. It's hard to really capture all that was said and what that conversation meant but what I can say is that it was really powerful.

And that was just one example of the kinds of conversations and interactions that I had that night with all of these cultured travelers. I think for the first time since I've been to Europe I didn't feel like 'an American' I felt more like a part of the international community. (as cheesy as that might sound)

So the next day (since we stayed out until about 7am!) we didn't get up until early afternoon. We (me, Fell and her roommate) just sat around and chatted and then walked around some and saw street performers like these people on La Rumbla.

At around 8pm the "fire run" began so we made our way to the street it was on. The fire run was this crazy parade of dragons and devils and scary firey things like that who would walk down the street with these huge sparklers. They would spray the crowds from time to time but mostly stayed in the street where tons of other people stood/walked underneath them. It is a little hard to explain lol. It was kinda scary because all of the sparklers made these really loud noises and those of you who know me well, know that I startle really easily.

After the fire run we ended up in a plaza where we thought there would be another concert but instead there was this crazy light show on one of the buildings. Lights were projected onto the building to music and it was like cartoons mixed with real life looking images. It was perfectly choreographed to the music and design of the building.

After that I met a few more American friends of Fell's and we went to another concert. It just so happened that we were standing next to the drummer's daughter! We all just kinda danced together and enjoyed the music and other peoples' wacky dancing. After the concert we pretty much just hung out with people like we did on the previous night.

On Sunday we went to see the human castlers. I was a little bit disappointed because even though it was really impressive, I was expecting these massive human castles but it was about 6 level individual towers of people. On the very top they had these really small children which were really cute.

After the castles, I didnt have much time before my train so Fell and I went to an Irish pub to grab some lunch. Aaaaaannnndddd I had some hot wings for the first time in months and I swear it was like heaven in my mouth!!!! I'm drooling a little just thinking about them! They were like Hooters...yummy. The perfect end to my Barcelona adventure!