A semester in Barcelona and all the adventures that come with it
Tuesday, February 12 marked the beginning of the federal trial of 12 Catalan separatists who face charges of sedition, nine of which are also accused of rebellion and misuse of public funds. The judicial proceedings, over a year in the making, has reawoken many of the intense feelings that surround how the independence referendum was …
Santa Eulalia, the Co-Patron Saint of Barcelona, gained notoriety as the 13-year-old virgin born under Diocletian’s regime who refused to denounce her Catholic faith. As the legend says, because of her Catholicism she was subjected to 13 tortures some of which include being locked in a small prison cell, walking barefoot on embers, being locked …
Continue reading "Festes de Santa Eulalia: A Window into Catalan Customs with a Side of Politics"
The slick texture leaves a sticky residue on your hands. The charcoal-like crisped exterior gets caught under your nails. The green tips build up into a mountain of discards. This is la calçotada, a traditional Catalan feast which revolves around calçots – a particularly bulky green onion. These aren’t the scallions you’ll be using to …
Continue reading "La Calçotada: The Catalan Banquet of Giant Green Onions"
Sitting at the intersection of four rivers, Girona’s strategic waterway location has made it a center a civilization for centuries, from the Romans to the Visigoths to the Moors to the Holy Roman Empire.
For a cosmopolitan city, Barcelona can still be quite the treat for the nature-inclined. Zoom out on google maps and you’ll see forests of green surrounding the metropolis, and one of which is the trail which leads up to Mount Tibidabo, the highest peak in the Serra de Collsera range. Situated in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi …
When I first received a notification from Wow air that my flight from Reykjavik to Barcelona had been bumped to depart eight hours later, transforming my two hour stop into a ten hour layover, I was at first frustrated. Of course, I knew that I should expect something like this from Wow, the Icelandic airline …
To Barna & Beyond 