Spain! (part 2)

Hello again from Barcelona. On Saturday night we went to the La Mercè festival in Barcelona. We were there for the Correfoc, the fire run that takes place during the festival every year. The evening started off with the kids Correfoc, the slightly less aggressive kiddie version of the adult, stab you in the face with my flaming firworks poker, Correfoc. Here is a shot of the crowd looking down the street from where the parade ended.


The kids (and adults) have to be fully protected because they're basically strapping bottle rockets onto poles and just letting them spin. The result is flaming hot bits of evil that rain down on all below bringing burnination and property damage. I was bundled up with a hoodie and a clear filter on my lens, even still having these flaming baddie bounce off my hands and face was an unpleasant experience. Luckily (for you) I'm hard core and got this totally awesome picture of one of the fire wielding kiddies.
More evidence of the protection required to keep the childern from emolating. Somehow I don't think this kind of thing would go over well in the States. Give children fire sticks and let them run free, poking each other with flaming death? Yes!

Look! Dragons! Dragons are awesome, espcially when they've consumed so many children. Those poor, poor children. The Spanish are so trusting to give their children such high powered, pain inducing, dragonmobiles.

Also, devils.

Some kiddies merely stood by and watched, but I must say, their parents were never far away. The kids would run out into the street, then a fireball would appear and the parents would run out and huddle over them. It actually looked a bit like a war zone, what with the fire and the screaming children. Great fun!



When the kids parade was over we took off to grab some dinner at a totally awesome Spanish Pizza Hut. Mediocre the world over!

The adult Correfoc was a completely different affair. Much bigger fireworks, much louder bangs and big dragons with lots of fire.


Also, these guys were way more aggressive, pointing their fire-guns at the crowd, shooting our feet and just being generally more pushy. Here's a totally emo, purple devil-guy.

And dancing, either to avoid catching feet on fire, or for general jubilation. Perhaps some of both.

Cult much?


They had people following along, bringing fresh fireworks and the fire for to light them.

This is another fire lighter fully outfitted for things. He's totally Van Halen from the future. If you get my back to the future reference you get a cookie for today.

This is Jay. Jay Dickman. He's the guy who is running this here photo thingie we're doing. Look how photoriffic he is.