Intro to Barcelona Fiestas: Sant Joan

I had heard from so many people how much folks in Barcelona love holidays, feasts, and celebrations of all sorts -- often taking it to extremes with over the top displays of ornate decorations, and downright dangerous traditions like making human towers over 4 stories tall. Yet, until last month, I had seen none of this.  Sant Jordi, back in April, was our first real Barcelona holiday, and was pretty tame by Catalan standards (sort of the Valentine's Day of Barcelona without the excessive spending on meaningless crap) -- this incredibly endearing holiday involved buying a book for a man in your life, and a single rose with a piece of wheat for a woman in your life.  Sweet, simple, heartfelt...but not the blood pumping holiday I was looking for.  Not that I'm trying to risk my life or be part of an angry mob or anything, just wanted to see that Catalan pride come out in full force and be a part of it.  People like to celebrate holidays in the US, but something told me they take it to another level around here...

A while back I had mentioned to a friend here that I still have yet to see a real display of Spanish partying. She was quiet for a minute, then smiled wide and said "wait for Sant Joan." 

Sant Joan, as I mentioned in a previous post, marks the summer solstice and typically involves a night of feasting, drinking, fireworks, and a ceremonial dip in the ocean at sunrise which symbolizes healing.  I had read that every neighborhood in Barcelona usually has a celebration of some sort, but often isn't advertised.  I DID read that if you go out around 9pm to your local plaza and see what's what...often you will find something happening.
So that's exactly what we did.  On June 24th, around 9:00pm (super late night for the kiddos), we all headed out to take the dog for a walk around our neighborhood.  We heard firecrackers going off all day long, but didn't see much in the way of "set up" for any celebrations in particular so we decided it was another holiday we were going to sit out, and headed home.  However, just as we were about to head back inside, keys in the door, we heard the beating of drums start up.  Ah ha!!!

We followed the sound of the drums over one street to find a crowd of people sitting in a plaza, children dancing, most just watching, as a group of about ten drummers played.  Just beyond the drummers, between two buildings I could see a group of people dressed in costumes, holding lit torches, circling around a large paper mache (?) dragon.  To the beat of the drum, out came the dragon, and so began a huge, neighborhood-wide parade winding through the streets of Poblenou.  The dragon and the drummers lead, as the entire neighborhood joined in the march.  Not sure where we were headed, we joined in, happy to finally have caught a celebration from the start!

The parade went on for a while longer, until we arrived a huge clearing down toward the beach...in the middle of the clearing was an entire town's worth of kindling. Piled up about 20 feet in the sky.  The dragon stopped, and the crowd cheered as the torches went in to light the fire.

Once the fire was lit, so began the circles of people dancing around the fire as it grew bigger and bigger, kids throwing fireworks into the center and the crowd cheering.  All around us, kids gathered in circles in empty streets, lighting fire crackers and throwing those little snap rocks that explode we used to use as kids...Would I personally hand my 3 year old a roman candle to light and toss into a street with people potentially walking through?  Um, probably not.  But here it is live and let live...if you want to let your kid live on the edge, that's your choice.  Interestingly enough, with all the fire and fireworks (largely lit by young children), there were no ambulance sirens or fire engines the entire night....  Regardless, we took care to keep away from the fireworks, and kept Evan close.

Once the fire grew too hot, we headed back home...finding that our entire street had been turned into a block party/family dinner with decorations.  Everyone had brought food to contribute.  We walked by, smiling and secretly wishing we were included in this "inner circle" :)    I imagined this was a long held tradition on this street, families who planned this huge pot luck celebration (complete with a DJ!) year after year...they looked like one big family out there, four generations drinking beers, eating ham, and laughing with the sound of firecrackers going off in the background.  Very cool to see.  Content to have finally witnessed a true, heartfelt Catalan holiday, we went home.. already looking forward to next year.