Barcelona Day 5

I would like to say that the high point of today is that Martha joined me here in Barcelona. And while this is definitely a significant event and I'm thrilled for her to join me, I think she and I would both agree that other things about today were pretty unique.






We met at the airport and then walked around our neighborhood taking normal couple pictures. In this one, Martha is standing on the street leading to the beach, where approximately 80 - 100 vendors are selling the exact same soccer shirts and beach towels for exactly the same price  right next to each other. My personal guess is that they all also share an apartment.









This evening we were walking around and stumbled into an even bigger pro-independence rally than the one I encountered last night. This one involved many hundreds of people, beer, weed, drumming and accordions. It's really a unique time to be here, what with the arrests, confiscations, police raids and independence advocates. People who care about Spain will be talking about this week for some time to come. This is some video of the rally we stumbled upon.

But then . . . we are here primarily for the Merce - the annual festival in Barcelona that involves hundreds of performers, art installations, food vendors, fire-related fun (like fireworks, the fire run where devils shoot fire into anyone who dares to run in the parade, and the kids' fire run, in which, I assume, the risks of suffering 3rd-degree burns are somewhat less than they are for the adult run).





Anyway, we happened to walk through a park where some performers were rehearsing for the Merce, and in the span of 45 minutes, saw an oriental break dancing act, a video fantasy drama projected on a building, and a guy meticulously and expertly tap dancing to Vivaldi's Rites of Spring. I have summarized each of those things in a video, but really, you had to be there.

I tried repeatedly to upload the video of all of this, but YouTube wouldn't allow me to add it to my blog because YouTube recognized the music the last guy was tap dancing to as Vivaldi's Rites of Spring, which is copyrighted. So I removed the tap dancer and have included below the video of the oriental break dancing and the video fantasy. Please let me know if you would like to see the tap dancer and I'l be happy to arrange a clandestine showing.

And yes, we also had an amazing dinner, the details of which I'll share when there's less about the day to write about.