Fiesta de La Gracía

Ok so Saturday night was so rockin’ except for getting stuck in the metro for half an hour with drunken French guys screaming incomprehensible words and lighting up cigarettes and joints in the flipping train! I went with a few friends from the dorms to Gracía which is a local festival where many of the barrios (neighborhoods) dress up the streets in different decorations. Each calle has a theme, a bar, and a live band. Herds of people wander the streets of Barcelona trashed and dancing. The street that one first prize was decked out in alien paper maché and plastic figures with a giant motorcycle in the front. Third place had beautiful carved lanterns and lights hanging from the home-made ceilings, and the band was playing Irish music. We went to the main stage in some random plaza and talked to this guy named Nacho for a long time. He was really sweet, but difficult to understand because he had a very thick Spanish accent. We wandered around some more and went to this one street where there was this awesome band playing catchy Spanish music and random American songs like Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life, which was perfectly cliché for the amount of debauchery we are all about to embark upon in the upcoming year. Drenched in sweat we danced the night away with people shooting water guns into the crowd. Kirsten and I got mobbed by a Spaniard and an Italian while Allie and Natalia laughed and took pictures. Shortly thereafter we decided to ditch our creepy foreigners. The city is beautiful and people of all ages where partying in the streets drinking cerveza and having a good time. Although I woke up incredibly late Sunday evening (5:45 pm) it was well worth it.