Calçotada Popular

Joining the castellers group has been a kick. Not only have I made a whole buncha' new friends, I've been able to get out of the house a lot and really get to know the neighborhood and its frequent events. The most recent neighborhood party was the Calçotada Popular that was hosted by our very own Castellers del Poble Sec.

But first, the castellers had a quick appearance at a local school that was celebrating Carnival (again). About 25 members of the group, including a couple of the musicians, did a quick five-level castle for the very appreciative kids and their parents. (By the way, this one looked even more like a Halloween party than the other Carnival events that I went to recently.)

After leaving the school, we walked the about four blocks or so to the Plaza del Sortidor where lots of activity was already under way. A calçotada is a type of barbecue that's a popular tradition in Cataluyna area of Spain and a calçot (kal-soat) is a type of green onion that looks sort of like a huge chive. So, a "calçotada popular" is a for-the-public-green-onion barbecue.

Here's one of the castellers arranging calçots in a metal frame...

...that gets placed directly onto the fiery coals to cook:

Some interesting things that I learned about calçots while writing this story is that they are originally from this area of Spain and, as they grow, dirt is added around the plant so that the white part grows extra long and with less greenery. This is what calçots look like once they're done cooking (a group of approximately six calçots is served in a piece of newspaper):

You eat them by peeling off the blackened outer layers of the calçot until you have the nice white and green part showing. Dip the white end of the calçot in sauce and start munching. You stop once you've finished pretty much all the white part and toss what ever is left of the green part.

I'm not that big on onions of any kind and generally avoid them if possible. If they're in the food I'm eating, I won't die but I'd prefer my meals to be onion-free. The idea of eating a giant barbecued onion for lunch/dinner didn't really sound that great to me until I had the chance to try some that Vladimir had made a few weeks ago. His were super so I was actually looking forward to eating them again during the calçotada popular. It is, after all, calçots season!

But first, there was work to be done. The event started with La Band Sambant, a local Brasil-style percussion band, performing for about 30 minutes or so. They were very entertaining and are good musicians and performers. The group was also interesting for the fact that it seemed to be made up of an assortment of people from all over the world.

Up next was the Castellers del Poble Sec. We did, if I remember correctly, four castles. It could have been one or two more. I can't remember...must be getting old. This is a five-level one that's still under construction:

Aside: The colle (koy-yay), or "gang", of castellers has several technicians that are responsible for the construction and safety of the different parts of the tower with one overall "head" that's in charge of the whole thing. When you're in the castle, you need to listen for the instructions of the people around you and the technician for your part of the castle. This is a photo of who's where (each little square has a name in it) in one of the castles that we built during the calçotada:

Once the "work" of building castles was done, an unknown-to-me tradition took place where various members were "baptised" in the plaza's fountain:

I even got to go up to the second level that day with Dan doing the honors. He's super strong and actually walked around for a couple of minutes with me up on his shoulders. It's fun and kinda' scary being up there but it makes you feel a bit like a kid again... (Thanks to Silvia, a fellow casteller, for this photo and the one up above of the castle layout.)

It was then time to start feeding all the folks who had gathered. Here I am with Diana, Gema, Vladimir, Bea, and Silvia (different from the Silvia of the photos above) ready to eat their calçot meal. Each person was served a bunch of calçots, a sausage, a baked potato, some bread, and a salvitxada sauce that the calçots are dipped in. For me, the magic's in the sauce. Calçots solo? Not too exciting. Calçots with the sauce? Winner! Oh yeah, and being that this is Spain, they served all the red wine you can drink as well. Bon profit!

Calçots were served for a couple of hours and then the plaza was cleaned up. It was time for the castellers to eat their lunch. Tables and chairs were set up inside the courtyard of a community center that's located on one side of the plaza. It was fun getting to eat with everyone involved with the event including the Sambant band, the folks who cooked the food, and the rest of the casteller clan.

I have to say that I've been sold on calçots. Thinking about them right now's making my mouth water. Argh...another food addiction!

Palau Guell

A (long) while ago Pau and I decided to go visit Palau Guell since neither of us had ever been there but I hadn't had a chance to write about it before now.

Palau Guell is another Antoni Gaudi project, which is located in Barcelona just off La Rambla not too far from the Mediterranean. It was commissioned by Eusubi Guell (who also had Gaudi design several other properties for him including the Church at Colonia Guell -- one of my favorites) as the Guell-family residence.

The street in front of the house is somewhat narrow so taking a good photo is difficult but this gives an idea of the scale:

Gaudi used a ton of different materials when building the house including lots of iron work some of which can be seen on the front gates and ornamentation:

The house was renovated over the last couple of years and just reopened for tours recently. The entire eight floors (counting the basement and roof) are open to the public Once you go in through the front door, you have a choice to continue straight ahead and down to the basement horse stables or up the stairs to the residence. This hallway, which connects the front of the house to the stable area looks like it's covered with ceramic tiles but the "tiles" are actually the ends of wooden boards sticking up out of the floor. This design was used to muffle the sound of the horses' hooves.

Continuing down the ramps, you come to the basement horse stable area. It's beautiful because of the use of brick and for the shapes of the columns and ramps. In my opinion, some of Gaudi's coolest details are ones like these where they aren't flashy but rather cool for art's (or structural) sake.

A shot of Pau petting the "dog" on our way out of the basement (note the use of catenary arches here by Gaudi):

As I mentioned, if you go the other way from the front door you're led up a set of stairs to the mezzanine level of the house's living space. Going up these steps, I really had the feeling that I was entering a castle. I'm guessing that these houses were the McMansions of their time.

There are a couple of features that really struck me when visiting the Palau Guell. One was the incredible wooden ceilings that are in a couple of the rooms. This one's kinda' hard to make out but I wanted to show it from the bottom of the stairs to give it some perspective. The ceiling work in this area (the antichamber, I believe) is probably about two feet "deep" and super detailed:

The next room you enter has a ceiling that's even more complex. This one was a combination of wood and iron work and was impressive to say the least (note the cool shape of the window openings as well):

After a couple of more rooms you walk out onto a balcony on the back of the house. I liked this unusual external window covering that's a combination of metal, wood, and tile:

The highlight of the house is the central hall, which has a ceiling that's over two stories high. The domed roof has a series of glass skylights that create the effect of what I'd call a starry night. This space was used for entertaining guests and includes a large steel-pipe organ towards the top of the room.

As with La Pedrera, Gaudi didn't slouch on the design of the attic utility area. This space, used as the laundry, kitchen, staff quarters, and storage for the house, has an undulating roof and some cool stained-glass windows:

Also like La Pedrera, the roof is an important part of the tour because Gaudi has made the house's 20 chimneys into an important part of the design of the building. The center-most, cone-shaped tower with the weather vane on top of it has a series of glass-covered openings that provide the light into the central hall below. From the roof deck, you can see a lot of the local area of the city including the cathedral and the Santa Maria del Mar church.

Thanks to Pau for hanging out for the day. Seeing the building was great but the kebabs we ate before going in weren't. :-) Next time, we'll pick a different place to eat!

Carnival

Just like pretty much every Catholic country in the world, Spain has a rich tradition of celebrating Carnival each year just before lent. Carnival began in Italy when people needed to "finish off" all the rich food, including the "carni/carne" (meat), and drinks prior to starting the pious period of Lent. Over time, it also became part of the tradition to dress up in costumes while they partied.

I had never been to a celebration of Carnival before but, over the days leading up to lent this year, I had the opportunity to attend three very different Carnival celebrations. The first was on Saturday night in the Poble Sec neighborhood of Barcelona where I live. It was mostly a small parade that was (surprisingly), with the exception of only two groups, made up of Latino social clubs. This is the group from Colombia:

...and this was the group from Bolivia (nope, haven't been there...yet):

Of course, what celebration in Catalunya can be complete without some form of protest? Not this one! This is the People of Poble Sec for Catalan Independence. You can read about the Catalan independence movement here. (In the small world category, the guy in the soccer uniform with the soccer ball is in my Castellers group.)

On Sunday morning, we went to visit some friends who live in the Barcelona village/suburb of San Vicent dels Horts, which is right near Colonia Guell. This celebration was much more kid-friendly and, to me, looked like Halloween. I think the thing that surprised me the most about the whole Carnival celebration was how both kids and adults were dressed in Halloween-style costumes. Before this, in my mind, Carnival was all about Vegas-show-girl-style outfits with lots of sequins and feathers. Live and learn!

This was the 70s style hippie group:

I liked this group that was made up of sharks and French-style boat captains. I'm sure that there's some significance to the theme but it escapes me. Maybe a book?

These folks had just come from the Linux Users Group meeting:

The staging area for the parade was in a large outdoor building near the train station. You can see people dressed as crayons, cave men riding dinosaurs, and, wait, what the f? Black-faced, afro-wearing coffee people? Yeah, I have no idea either...

Like I said, the whole event had a Halloween feel to it. These are some of the local kids dressed in their Halloween Carnival finest:

On the Tuesday night before Ash Wednesday, it was off to Sitges to check out one of the most famous Carnival celebrations in Spain. This event was much more what I had pictured in my mind with its Vegas-themed groups:

The quality of the costumes was outstanding and there was obviously a lot of effort put into them and the accompanying floats. Check these guys out:

Sitges is a great little beach town that's famous, like Palm Springs, for being very gay friendly. Not only does it result in the area being very nice, it gives it a great flavor too. I loved this group's costumes and their well choreographed performance:

I know that Carnival is all about the party thing. I get it. What surprised me was the percentage of people in the groups that were smoking, drinking, and/or smoking and drinking while marching. Here's a shot of a couple of girls filling up their cups at the gin-and-tonic and vodka bar located on the side of one of the floats:

Darren's award for best of show was this group from the Sitges parade. They had amazing animal-style costumes and performed live music and danced while marching. Verrrry impressive:

And, finally, the overall Carnival winner was this group, also from the Sitges parade. The group's theme was making fun of the street vendors that you see all over, especially in tourist areas like Barcelona. There were the African guys selling fake hand bags, questionable food vendors, and used clothes salesmen among many others. It was by far the funniest and most creative group.

Add Carnival to my list of experiences! It was for sure a fun way to spend the weekend. Now to go think about thinking about giving up something for lent...