Castles and congregations and conservatories
Sunday was the annual "Concurs d' Castells," where the human castle teams from all over Catalunya come together to compete in the bullfighting arena in Tarragona. I thought last week's castles were impressive, this took it to another level. It was HOT, and about a dozen teams were all crowded down in the arena, standing the whole time until it was their turn. We went with Enric and Angel, who explained the planned formation which was posted on the scoreboard prior to the team's attempt. The green team from Vilafranca were the known leaders, and, indeed, made a pyramid of something like nine or ten levels (see first part of video.) Typically, it's a kid of 4-5 years who goes to the very top, raises their hand to indicate that they're up there, and then the whole pyramid has to dismount without falling since getting up is only half the battle. As you can see in the second half of the video, not all teams were successful. There's been a lot of controversy lately since a little girl was killed in one of the falls a month ago. Some people are saying they should stop trying to build castles that are so high. I'm actually surprised there aren't more accidents, it's a long way to fall, but evidently they are trained in how to fall the "right" way and it's all very well planned out. My favorite part of the show was when multiple castles were built at the same time, it was a moving sea of green and purple and red and yellow and blue, some going up, some coming down, all simultaneously. A lot of fun.

Yesterday we tromped into Barcelona, where thanks to the web I had found the first and only progressive Jewish congregation in the city. They're a new congregation, sans Torah and a building, but they held services in the side room of a church. This felt pretty familiar since my parents' synagogue has overflow in a church in Manhattan, and the rabbi actually was a friend of my parents' rabbi as well since they had studied together in Argentina. I was wondering who exactly would attend, since my friend here pointed out that they did away with most Jews over half a millennium ago. I figured some had come back though. And it took me about half the service before I figured out that at least a third of the people in there (only 20-25) were from the states. Actually, I could tell by their Hebrew, something I never would have guessed. So overall, the service wasn’t too different than one at home, just Hebrew/Spanish vs. Hebrew/English, and evidently there are no guides in Catalán yet. Other than a morbid part on martyrs, I enjoyed it, and we had a lovely break-fast last night at home with a sesame bread from the local bakery that was closer to a real bagel than most of what I found in Boston:).

And as for the conservatories, I just had to mention that there is a music conservatory down our street a few buildings, so every morning we’ve been having coffee and breakfast to flutes or violins wiling there way up through our window. Fortunately, most of the students are quite advanced and there’s only been one screechy clarinet to date.  ¶ 9:57 AM