When we booked our trip to Barcelona, we had NO idea we were booking over La Merce weekend. So we…read morestarted reading about it and....wait...there are human towers? Bands all over the city? Art shows? Dance? A DEVIL FIRE parade? Papier-mache giants? There's no question that Barcelona is an incredible city and the highlight of my visit was La Merce. It's traditional culture, crazy parties, parades and music all at once. We watched the entry parade and the giants parade and were just in awe. The castellans were incredible - human towers 7 or 8 high, with little kids scrambling up to the top! The closing fireworks were beautiful & synchronized to music. I mean, tens of thousands of people singing along to "Imagine" is something I won't forget. This isn't a spectacle for the tourists (though there are plenty of us!), it's an expression of local pride and traditional culture. I loved seeing little kids participating in the parades, dressing up and playing in the bands, hopefully carrying the traditions on. My only regret was missing the correfoc run, but that means I have to come back!

Every year, Barcelona holds a week long festival to commemorate their local patron Saint's day…read more This festival always falls in the week with 24 September. We were fortunate enough to be in Barcelona for most of the festival this year. You'll find: Castellers (human towers) Giant puppety type things Big street food event Light shows Art installations Concerts Gymnast/circus shows Loads of family events It. Was. Awesome! Can't wait for next year!

Coachella has a whimsical ambiance to it filled with bright lights, glowsticks and trippy art,…read morehowever, the there is no real ambiance at Primavera other than looking out at the Mediterranean sea. It's a concrete shipping dock with lots of stages in weird areas. I am really bad with directions and this layout is more confusing than Coachella and Bumbershoot combined. The ambiance is created by the people attending who are real music fans rather than a bunch of D-bags wanting to be seen. Weirdly I don't speak any Spanish other than a few phrases, however, I understood 100% of it when it was spoken to me. I used to live next a family who were Spanish so I picked up a few words here and there. I couldn't respond to anybody but at least having understood a few things allowed me to not get lost through the gates of the show. The festival itself starts late when it cools down a bit. Unlike Lollapalooza where the curfew is 10:00 pm this festival goes until 5:00 am. There was very little noise bleed between stages. There was no real flashy stage show with the bands, just basic lights. This meant that the band(s) could only rely on their catalogue and performance. For some bands this was a lot of pressure while for others it was a cake walk. It's a good testament to see whose catalogue actually holds up when all of the "glamour" is stripped. Prior to getting into the venue there were a lot of people "scalping" and selling beer from a 6 pack. Just local citizens wanting to make a buck by selling canned beer. There was a lot of drinking and smoking. Most of the European culture is based around heavy smoking and drinking. It took us a while getting used to it. We didn't smoke, however, I am sure that we inhaled enough that we might as well have called ourselves smokers for a day. As for the drinking there were a lot of people loaded but no one really smashed or wasted. They were respectively loaded. There was also no dangerous under age drinking. Other than the occasional weed (even though I don't smoke weed I have an appreciation for Vancouver weed since whatever was being smoked was just awful) there were no real hard drugs. There was a lot of drinking and beer stations but only a very small amount of porta pots. There is a large plastic wall for guys to pee in with a large bucket for "collection." I wonder if that gets hooked up to the Heineken beer gardens for re-distribution since it's 80% pure. The good thing about being well buzzed is that I could do my Elaine Benes dance and blend right in with everyone else's bad dancing. Security was a breeze unlike the paranoia fest that is Coachella with 4 different check points that takes an hour to clear just to get onto festival grounds. I wasn't feeling the concrete areas 'cause it is very hard on the feet, especially if you're dancing a lot. The environmental conditions have caused my skin to suddenly rapidly age by a decade but inside my heart I've decreased my age by a decade. By the end of the evening I felt young again. Due to Barcelona being in the worst economic situations in Europe with 50% of their population unemployed (if it wasn't for the Euro dollar they would've been bankrupt) it was no surprise that those in attendance were well off locals and other's who flew in from other parts of Europe.

Crazy, laugh-out-loud, adrenaline high fun. I just recently attended the Barcelona Improv Group…read more(BIG) International Festival (IF) from November 4 to 8. It is an English language improv festival consisting of a crazy gang of improvisers from all over the world. Off the top of my head, there were improvisers represented from the USA, UK, Ireland, Israel, Turkey, Finland, Denmark, France, Spain.... I had a 25 euro festival pass for access to all four nights of the festival. That's 20 shows total. In the US, even with the exchange rate, I usually pay more, so this was a really good deal. Being my first time attending this festival and an international one at that, I was a little skeptical of whether improvisers of so many countries and so many non-English native languages could pull off an improv show in English. All I can say is that I was simply amazed at the performances I saw from every team. They were spectacular and watching them was so much fun! My favorite festival highlights: --Mixer teams. Improvisers from different teams/countries performing for the first time together on stage. There were 2-3 mixer teams each night, each team with different improvisers. Each member of each team performed so seamlessly and were so in tune with each other, it seemed as if they had several rehearsals together, when in fact they were assembled for the first time 15 minutes before showtime! Being that the mixer teams were really good, it was just so cool. --Musical accompaniment and musical improv. I loved it. So many improvisers of so many countries making up song on the spot. The music just added a great tone to the performances and it made each night flow. Overall, the festival was a surprising delight. One recommendation, Friday and Saturday night were packed. So, if you do go, probably best to purchase your ticket or pass in advance through their website, which was what I did. Finally, other things to note: The venue was pretty decent with a bar downstairs where you can purchase a glass of wine or beer for 2 euros or less. One downside about the venue: the women's restroom had two toilets, which led to a long wait.

Stumbled upon this little gem this afternoon when we were walking around Barcelona. A live band…read morewith authentic German music, German Beer and German sausage. What else could one ask for during Octoberfest?! Very fun and I would recommend stopping by!! I had some beer and the sausages. The sausages were delicious and there was no entrance fee!

Respect to Barcelona! What a great Octoberfest celebration…read more It felt like im in Germany, great beers very cheap, lots of happy people and sitting areas and awesome music spanish, german and american tunes. Highly recommended even if you are a tourist go there get drunk have a jolly good time ;)