La Merce

So right now (this week) the festival of La Merce is happening which means lots of things going on, free concerts, tents set up, events, free museums and stuff like that. I haven't really done a whole lot of stuff but on Friday there was a light show at Sagrada, put on by some Montreal artists so we went to see that. It was kind of cool - they basically use these laser beam lights some how and make it look like all kinds of different things going along with some music Here is a link to a snippit of it for you to get an idea. And then yesterday we were going to go to a free concert and I knew it would be really crowded because it was for free and a pretty well known band - however I was not expecting what we met when we got off the train.

The metro was pretty busy, and if you figure that each train probably holds close to 1000 people (when it's at capacity, and it was) and those trains are coming every 4 minutes - well, you can imagine how many people are coming up from the underground station. Well - when we got to our stop, where the light show was also happening and so a lot of people were going to that - they had completely shut down one exit of the metro so now ALL the people had to go up one set of stairs to exit the station. This was bad enough, but on top of it, all the people waiting to see the light show outside had blocked the exit to the station and they WOULD NOT MOVE. It was pretty scary actually, because I couldn't see how far the mob of people went and no one was willing to move AT ALL so I just started kind of slowly but strongly forcing my way through them and of course people didn't like being pushed but they are standing 10 ft away from a metro exit! What do they expect? So they are yelling, and getting mad and I'm yelling back and telling them that there are hundreds of people underground with another train every 4 minutes - blech. But eventually we made our way out of it. It was not a good feeling at all though. The police are so stupid - they are standing around when they should have been there telling people to move away from the exit and also they didn't shut down the streets! I mean - this is just another typical Barcelona issue - they have HORRIBLE planning skills. Who plans a concert for THOUSANDS in a tiny narrow street? Especially when there are so many other big, wide open places that wouldn't disturb traffic at all in the city? Rediculous.

So yes - we finally made it to where the concert was happening and we were 1 full block away (100m) from the big screen - the band itself was atleast 4 blocks away and it was starting to become like the seen near Sagrada so we decided not to stay. It just wasn't worth it when you can't see anything and you can't even move. So we had a drink in Gracia and headed home. Not the most fun I've had.

In other news! I'm headed to Berlin on Wednesday and pretty excited about it. I have about 4 days on my own to really see the city and hopefully enjoy the peace and get a lot of work done on my thesis as well. It's always easier when I'm away and don't really have distractions. There seems like a lot to see there and I don't really know any of the history so there should be a lot to learn. I decided to spend more time in Berlin than Stockholm just because it's a much cheaper country and also I've actually never been in Germany at all now that I think of it. I expect to eat lots of sausage! Haha! I'm staying in a place that I booked on airbnb (my new favorite website) and so I'll be in a house with 2 locals who can help tell me where to go and what to see. Maybe I'll even learn a bit of German - apparently it's actually closer to english than spanish (although I don't believe that!)

Well, today I'm just takin it easy, hanging out with Nuno and watching movies, he's also helping books stuff because he knows these cities better than I do for when steph comes in 3 weeks. Hope everyone else is doing well!

<3