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Concluding Post

To see my more interesting and elaborate posts on Barcelona, look at the Field Trip documents closer to the bottom of my feed (Field Trips 1-3). Xavi, I am sorry those are closer to the bottom. I know it could be better organized but everything is all there! Click the “Keep Reading” links on some of my posts for my extra comments and work.

Reflection on the semester:

This semester in Barcelona, Spain (August-December, 2018) was amazing for me, when I wasn’t doing classwork or exploring other parts of Europe, I loved exploring Barcelona solo or with friends, or visiting other parts of Spain including: Tarragona, Seville, Malaga, Costa Brava (Tossa de Mar), and Girona. I wish I would’ve kept up with my blog more and shared more through here, but also, I am pretty content with it because I know I gained so much perspective just by living my life and opening my eyes to new experiences here in Barcelona!

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Commented News Story - International, France Protests

This article was posted on December 9, 2010, talking more about the recent protests and violence in France.

This is the link to the article:

https://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20181209/453445386850/paris-disturbios-chalecos-amarillos-balance-violencia-francia.html

Click the “Keep Reading” for my comments on the article.

This post is essentially about Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, and his decision to remove ecotaxes. “Yellow vesters”, a leaderless group, are protesting increases in price of fuel but more generally this increase in taxes, which, the president, Macron, had not explained to the public yet his decisions for making this change, something he promised not to do. But, do political leaders ever follow on what they say they are going to do? Answer: no, not really.

The article starts off like this: “The French government breathed last night with some relief. The new day of protest of the yellow vests shook the country and left a very considerable balance of damages, but it was not the catastrophe that was feared so much. Thanks to the spectacular police deployment and mass arrests, the escalation of violence was halted. Now it is up to President Emmanuel Macron to lead the dialogue and make concessions that calm the spirits and reverse the growing social unrest.”

Now, after all we have talked about in class, this raises red flags to me. Locking people up and imprisoning them is not a way to solve problems... if anything, it really creates more. The article states that there were 135 injured persons injured - among them, 17 law enforcement officers. And arrests were made, all in one night they arrested 1,400 people. 1,400! That’s so many people, the article even also states “Rioters were arrested before they could act”. Now, I don’t know how the yellow vesters were protesting, and whether they deserved to be arrested (if they were violently rioting, yes, arrest them). I hope everyone that was arrested deserved to be, but I doubt this is the case. I really think going forward the president, or the prime minister of France, or SOMEONE needs to make a statement. Locking up masses of people, I think, will only fuel their anger. The title of the article is “France slows down violent escalation”... they think by imprisoning the people, the violence will slow, but unfortunately, I am scared that without change from within, this will be only the start of long-going political unrest and more violence/anger to come.

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Commented News Story

Jordi Sanchez, former president of the Catalan National Assembly and one of the leaders we have talked in class about (leader of social movements, the referendum, all peaceful), is still imprisoned in a prison called Lledoners, along with other political leaders. This article discusses Jordi going on hunger strike within the prison.

Here is the link to the article:

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20181207/453416887895/jordi-sanchez-huelga-hambre-jxcat-soberanismo.html

Click the “Keep reading” link for more in-depth comments.

Sanchez, the former president of the Catalan National Assembly, or the ANC, reflects in the article, shortly at the beginning, about the way out of this “conflict” (I think it’s more than just a conflict, him being wrongfully imprisoned is more of an injustice than a mere conflict) and the strategy he believes the independence movement must follow going forward.

First, I just have to set a reminder for why he is imprisoned: charged for sedition and violence just for help in organizing the referendum (where Catalans could vote whether they wanted independence from the state) and speaking his values in a peaceful, nonviolent way... the one’s who got violent on this day in 2017 were the officers.

In the article, Jordi Sanchez stated something along the lines of, “It was in the thoughts of all of us to the extent that it is one of the few ways of peaceful protest available to a prisoner. It was raised over the weekend of November 10, in one of the many conversations that the seven political prisoners hold throughout the day.”

The hunger strike couldn’t have been an easy decision for them, but what more can they do? They are imprisoned! They don’t want to lash out with words, or violence, so this is one of their ways of drawing attention to themselves and the problems at hand PEACEFULLY, without hurting anybody.

Protesting by hunger strike has its implications (personal, family and political), but Sanchez has “been pondering and reflecting this possibility for some time.” When questioned on putting an end to the hunger strikes and protests, he said that there isn’t an end in sight, and he wants to challenge everyone by focusing on the serious effects of their rights. I think this is so powerful, maybe choosing to protest by hunger strike isn’t the best method for real results, but at least he is doing SOMETHING, he knows what he believes in, is standing up for what he believes in, and is willing to fight for it even with no end in sight, and that is what is powerful to me.

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National Day of Catalonia

September 11th, 2018

National Day of Catalonia - a day to commemorate the fall of Barcelona during the War of the Spanish succession in 1714 and subsequent loss of Catalan institution/laws (damnit Franco, see Field Trip 2 for more info).

This video was taken as I was walking away from Barcelona Sants, people are walking towards that area to peacefully protest for Catalan independence from Spain.

I also remember on my way to class, I was almost late as I didn’t realize the bus would drop me off in a totally unknown place to me (at the time) so I had to walk. I stumbled upon some of the demonstrations they were having in Placa Universitat on the way to class. Everything was peaceful, there were so many people chanting with flags. It was really cool to witness.

One of the most interesting aspects of class for me has been talking about Catalan independence and current issues here in Barcelona - I am LIVING in a period of, hopefully, change for Catalunya and Barcelona.

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Olympic Game stadium

Click the “Keep Reading” link for more details!

Something we have talked in class recently about is the “Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys”, or Olympic Game stadium. It was originally built in 1927 for the 1929 International Exposition in the city, but renovated in 1989 so it could be the main stadium for the 1992 Summer Olympics. This building, along with many other areas of the city, were renovated and restructured entirely (addition of many PUBLIC buildings – see El Raval field trip, taking the cars out of the city) for the Olympic Games. Now, this venue holds events like concerts, and largely, soccer games where you can root for Barca and watch Lionel Messi! Soccer or fútbol is a huge part of culture in Catalunya... always on the TVs, a topic of discussion, or played amongst children in parks. Also, the kids at my outside university are always playing some online fútbol game on their laptops instead of paying attention in class, it’s fabulous.

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Paella

Click the “Keep Reading” link for more details!

Paella began in Valencia as farmers and farm laborers’ food. The dish consists of rice, veggies, a meat (often seafood), and various seasonings. There are many adaptations of this dish and lots of restaurants in Barcelona serve it, advertising to the tourists in Ramblas or on signs outside of their restaurants – however, the restaurants with the authentic paella is known best by locals. Here, in this example, I got paella at a place close to my house in mid November, and it was subpar at best. Nothing compared to the time I had it at a restaurant by the beach at the beginning of my semester abroad!

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Gegants at La Mercè festival in September

Gegants are “Vertical figures with human characteristics whose measurements considerable exceed those of individuals normal dimensions, guided from within by a single person in order to participate in festivals and celebrations; a festive symbol of the collective.”

-Jan Grau and Albert Abellan

The parade with gegants was awesome. They did indeed exceed normal dimensions. There was music in the parade, and different giants would walk together. They represented nobles, peasants, kings/queens, and more. They often passed in pairs, there was even a little sun and moon that passed in the parade.

Capgros (cap meaning head and gros meaning big) are these big (slightly creepy, depends on the way you view it) heads. Poor people would dance in them and mock the King. This picture dates all the way back to my trip to Tarragona at the beginning of the semester.

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Arroz a la cubana is a dish commonly made in the home here in Barcelona. The dish consists of rice smothered with tomato sauce, plaintains or bananas, and a fried egg. It is served warm, and my house mom makes the fried egg salty. Sometimes she puts meat on the side resembling bacon. This is one of the dishes I had never had before coming to Spain, and although it is not exclusive to Cataluña, it is definitely not common in America. This dish is popular amongst Spanish speaking countries. Also – the Spanish word for rice, arroz, is derived from Arabic! How neat. Language = culture

Here you can see it paired with bread, tomato spread, jamón - super common here, basically can get these ingredients on any bocadillo you find in Barcelona!

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Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya is one of many, many free art museums in Barcelona.

It is located in the Palau Nacional of Montjuïc (constructed for the International Exposition of 1929). Today, when visiting the museum you can see Romaneque mural paintings, Catalan modernism, gothic art, photography, and so much more. There are so many sections that I could have spent HOURS looking at and depicting, instead I took half a day and didn’t see enough. Below are some of the works I took photos of.

Work of Pablo Picasso

Salvador Dali - this exhibit definitely had the most foot traffic

Superhero Posters from the 90’s

Boobs out, eating grapes fed by the devil, cross around neck. I love it.

You can’t tell but this image took up almost the entirety of the wall. It was great. There were a bunch of paintings/images of wine - good examples of the wine culture and normalcy of it here!

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Here are photos of my personal favorite, tortilla. My house mom makes tortilla or Spanish omelette for dinner sometimes and I am thrilled every time because it’s so good. You can see the note in the first picture. She pairs it often with bread which has tomato spread and jamón.

Apparently, there are two tales about the creation of the tortilla española. One says that it was invented by general Tomás de Zumalacárregui during the Bilbao siege as a quick and nutritious dish for the Carlist army.The other is also about general Zumalacárregui, but it says he stumbled upon a farmhouse and asked the woman there to prepare him a meal, and the woman prepared a meal using the only ingredients she had in the house.

These theories exemplify some things we have talked in class so much about: importance of the army, as well as simplicity in Catalan culture.

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Òmnium Cultural is a social group based here in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was originally created in the 1960s to promote the Catalan language and spread Catalan culture. Today, their leader Jordi Cuixart is imprisoned along with other leaders; an injustice (Free Political Leaders campaign). You can read more about it in our slides, which includes a video link.

In our presentation, we included some recent news of the group, which I have also included here:

To this date, (December, 2018), Jordi is still imprisoned. Click the link below for a current timeline on how long he has been imprisoned, as well as more information from the official website of Òmnium Cultural.

https://www.omnium.cat/en/

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My favorite excursion - to the El Raval!

December 5, 2018

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On November 4th, 2018 (a Sunday) I went to a Flamenco show in Barcelona - extra details are on the photo of the ticket!

Flamenco Dance is something present in Catalunya today, a lot for the tourists but the history is very interesting/controversial. There are many theories as to why flamenco dance originated. One of the theories that makes the most sense, to me at least, is as follows:

“it [Flamenco] originated in Andalusia and that from the VIII to the XV centuries, when Spain was under Arab domination. Their music and musical instruments were modified and adapted by Christians and Jews, and later by gypsies becoming a hybrid music separate from the musical forms which created it.”

In the dance, I feel like you can see the Arab and gypsy influence. The sounds they made during the show reminded me of the sounds I witnessed when I visited Morocco (Arabic) a few weekends later. The show I attended in Barcelona was in a place called Tarantos kind of off Ramblas, but I have also seen Flamenco performed at La Merce, in the streets of Seville, and in a few other places across Catalunya. The show lasted for 30 minutes and was filled almost solely with tourists recording it, but it was still very cool and made me reflect on what this form of dance could have meant to people in previous years!

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September 22, 2018

La Mercè in Barcelona

One of the events of this festival was ‘Correfoc’ meaning literally fire-run or running with fire. It was full of creatures like dinosaurs, devils, spiders, and more that set off fireworks in the crowd. The dragons and the fire are to draw away the bad spirits.

A traditional Catalan verse regarding Correfocs shared in class is as follows:

“I am a devil at this ball,

Devil I am now and always will be,

And I’d rather be a devil

Than to learn to be a... shoemaker”