They Might Be Giants!

 We've been in Barcelona for 4 days and have 2 more to go before we move on to Paris. We've done a ton of things in Barcelona, which I'll touch on later. But I have to tell you about what we saw this morning.

Chris and I went to mass today, had breakfast, and then made our way toward The Picasso Museum, where we had tickets for 1:00 p.m. We had some time to kill, and the Metro landed us near a pretty impressive park, so we wandered through. Chris thought he heard bagpipes, and there were definitely drums, so we made our way toward them. As we approached, we saw these wonderful, huuuuge giant puppets of various figures in history and legend and literature (even Pippi Longstocking!). They weren't all heroic. There was one I was convinced was Muammar Gaddafi. We saw signs for Al Capone and Mata Hari, too. 

Here's a link to an explanation of what the event was all about. The link refers to this event being similar to the La Mercè processions, festivals held in honor of Mare de Deu de la Mercè, the patron saint of Barcelona, in September.

The puppets were operated by men and women who got underneath them and worked them with four poles. We saw a few child-sized puppets, too.  The puppets were paired off, male and female, and each pair had a band serenading the puppets and getting them to dance. Most bands had a drum line and a reed instrument resembling an oboe called a "dulçaina" (Catalan spelling). 

The most impressive was the last one in the procession. I'm not sure who this was meant to be, but the band was essentially a drum line that absolutely kicked butt. I can't seem to upload the video here, but if you check out my story on FaceBook you'll be able to see and hear it there.

Once all the puppets left the starting point and joined the general procession, we started to make our way to The Picasso Museum. On our way, we came upon the procession of the giant puppets, which eventually ended in a broad boulevard adjacent to an even more impressive park. The park was packed with people and there were "officiants" presiding over some kind of official ceremony. We then realized that there were more puppets than those we saw in the park we were in. More puppets were streaming in from other areas of the city. 

It was very moving to see the community spirit of the throngs of people in the park who'd come to see the spectacle of the giants. We were so lucky to just come upon this. It will be a forever memory.

Oh, and the Arc de Triomf was pretty impressive, too!