This past Saturday I woke up pretty late and went on the “Auxiliars de les Illes Balears” group on Facebook and saw that one of the assistants from the US who is part of a “Castellers” group invited everyone to come watch him and the Palma team he is on perform with two other groups in the city of Manacor in the eastern part of the island. I sent some text messages around to see if anyone wanted to join me. Only Alyssa, from Chicago, responded that she would be interested in coming to watch with me. We headed to the Estació Intermodal (the main train, bus, metro station of Palma) and bought tickets to go to Manacor. We ended up going down to the platform 45 minutes earlier than we had to and since you can’t get back trough without making your ticket invalid we were stuck down there until the train arrived to take us to the other end of the line, to Manacor.

The train ride was nice and we arrived in Manacor after an hour and ten minutes of train. We made our way to the center of town as that is where the cathedral was located and where the directions told us to go. After asking a few people how to get there we made it to the Plaza where the “actualizacions” or performances were taking place. We saw the other auxiliar (assistant) Joel who was part of the Casteller team of Palma.

Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and description

Castell is the Catalan word for “Castle” and Casteller is the word for a person who takes part in forming ‘human castles’. This tradition of building human castles or towers started in the town of Valls near the end of the 18th century. The typical attire of a Casteller is white pants, a black sash called “faixa”, a colored shirt, and a bandana. The sash which is black, varies in length depending on where one is in the Castell. It wound tightly around the mid area to offer support to the back for those on the bottom and also as a place for climbers to grab onto as a handhold or a foothold as they climb up the tower. The bandanas are also used around the wrists of those on the bottom to offer support and tied around legs, chests, stomachs, and other parts of the body for foot and hand holds for the climbers.  The Casteller’s motto is “Força, equilibri, valor i seny”, which means Strength, balance, courage and reason.

There are different types of Castells and they are named by the number of people who make up each level and the number of levels. Some of the largest towers have been Tres de nou(three by nine) and Tres de deu (three by ten). Many of the Castells that we saw this weekend were Cinc de cinc (five by five) and Cinc de ses (five by six). The bottom level, which is just a large group of people supporting the Castell, is called the ‘Pinya’.  The top most Castellers are usually young children and they are called “enxaneta”.

It was really really cool to see this for the first time in real life. I’ve seen it on television and it was so much better in real life. I’d really like to see a huge actualizació in Barcelona sometime! There was this one group from Barcelona that did this one Castell where they built it from the bottom. The top two levels got up on the “Pinya” and then it was built from the bottom meaning that you saw the top levels rise up until there were 5 levels. Once all 5 levels were built the “enxaneta” raises his/her hand and they begin to dismantle the Castell. A Castell is not complete unless it is succesfully built and dismantled without it falling apart. Below is a video and some photos of different Castells that I saw this past weekend.

Click here or the photo to see a larger version with a caption

Click here or on the photo to see a larger version and a description

Click here to see a larger version and description

Click the photo below to watch a video I took!

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Alyssa and I had planned to go back to Palma and cook dinner and make our way to Bluesville, a cafe where a live band plays. We ended up going over to another assistant’s house to have pizza with other assistants. We finally made our way out to Bluesville and by the time we got our drinks the band had stopped playing. I’ve decided that I hate crowded bars and clubs and I enjoy hanging out and talking, than going to a place where I can’t even hear myself speak.

This post is stored in the category of Contains Images, Contains Video(s), Made in Spain, Personal Post, Written in Catalan and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Auxiliars de les Illes Balears, Bluesville, Castell, Casteller, enxaneta, faixa, Made in Spain, Mallorca, Manacor, Palma, Pinya, Valls

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One of the best videos I’ve seen in a very very long time…so beautiful….and you could see in the audience and judges’ faces that what she was depicting was very special to them as a culture…

Click on the image below to watch the video!

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This post is stored in the category of Contains Video(s), Made in Spain, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Kseniya Simonova, Russia, Sand Animation, Youtube

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This post is stored in the category of Contains Photo(s), Contains Video(s), Made in France, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: and Toes, CE2, English Assistant, ESL, Franc, Head, Knees, Les Pins, Shoulders, Teaching

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So Friday night Alissa and I decided that we should end the year in the restaurant where we began the year, my favorite restaurant, L’Orange Ball. Georgia couldn’t join as as she was busy at one of her school’s Kermesse. Fernando and Isabel were having company over for dinner and so it was just Alissa and I.  We headed down to the Centre Ville around 6:30 and went straight to the restaurant. They no long had my favorite salade, Compagnarde, but they had this amazing salad called Salae Gavroche, which consisted of lettuce, white ham, emmentel cheese, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, and this amazing white creamy dressing.  We ordered a big litre of sangria and had pizza and then ice cream for dessert! It was a great meal!

This weekend was La Fête du Quartier St. Pierre downtown so we decided to check out what activities were going on. We luckily finished dinner right on time as a free Cabaret was about to begin starting with a magic show. The magician was very funny and entertaining and his show went along with very upbeat classical music remixes. He used live animals and rabbits and birds were appearing and disappearing left an right. He was really good and had me fooled the whole time as I was trying to be as observant as possible but couldn’t see through his allusions at all. This may be because of the .5L of sangria I had drank at dinner. After the magician there was a group of Moroccan Belly Dancers that got on the stage.  They were absolutely horrible. I’ve seen MULTIPLE belly dancers in my life time having gone to the International Festival in Columbus many years and even having seen on live at North Commons at OSU during a themed buffet night! We actually saw them practicing for something au Centre Ville the following morning (yesterday) and I took some video! Alissa and I ended up getting up and leaving and making our way through town where we hear accordion music. After some further investigation we found that there was an accordion concert going on in the park so we sat at the fountain and watched. After we grabbed a beer one last time at Byron Bay and may our way home as we had to get up early yesterday.

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YouTube - Click here to see video of horrible belly dancers!

Yesterday we got up and took the bus at 9:00am into town where we bought some food for a picnic and bought Dax Féria (Dax Festival) handkerchiefs (they wear these at the festival).  We also purchased a CD with typical Féria music on it.  La fête de Dax (The Festival of Dax) takes placed in early to mid August, which is sad since we will not be here.  Below you can watch a video of the opening ceremony where everyone holds their handkerchief (like the ones Alissa and I bought) up and sway them back and fourth and sing “la la” to the song, “Vino Griego et Foulards”, which is a very famous Féria song here in the southwest of France!

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After doing some shopping and buying some souvenirs at the Saturday market we caught a bus to the train station and then took a train to St. Jean de Luz to go on Le Petit train de la Rhune (Mt. Rhune’s Little Train). Our plan had been to go with Georgia, Fernando, and Isabel but because they all three were very busy preparing to leave France Alissa and I decided to go and had to figure a way to get out to Col de Saint Ignace where the train station for the Train de la Rhune is located.

La Rhune (or Larrun) in Basque, which means “good pasture” is mountain found in the Basque Country on the border of France and Spain. To get to the top of the train one must go to Col de Saint Ignace in France and take “Le Petit Train de la Rhune” to reach the 905m (2,969ft) summit.

Since Isabel and Fernando invited us to dinner at 8pm Alissa and I had to give ourselves enough time to get to the train station for La Rhune and get up to the mountain and back down. To go up and come back down takes a minimum time of 1 hour and a half. A one way trip up the mountain takes 35 minutes and if you decide to hike back down the mountain it takes around two and a half hours. There is a bus that does go from St. Jean de Luz to a town called Sare, which passes by the Col de Saint Ignace. The bus is called Le Basque Bondissant and on Saturdays during a school period there are two buses from St. Jean de Luz to Sare and two buses form Sare to St. Jean de Luz. The first time 9:15am was too early for as we would have had to catch a 6am train to make it. The 2:00pm bus was too late as we weren’t sure we’d have enough time once we got to Col de St. Ignace to catch the train and get back before dinner. We decided to take a later train in the morning from Dax to St. Jean de Luz and once we arrived in St. Jean de Luz we took a taxi for €23 to Col de Saint Ignace. When we go there there was a long line as the station was closed for lunch and didn’t open unitl 1:20pm. we waited a good half hour in the hot sun and finally bought our tickets and about 10 minutes later boarded the train to take up to the summit.

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YouTube - Click here to watch my video of us ascending Mt. Rhune

The view was amazing and as we went up we saw a great assortment of fauna, trees, and plants. We saw wild horses, sheep, goats and different types of very larger birds. It was a beautiful day to be going up the mountain. At the top there was a hotel, I believe, and restaurants and a souvenir shop as well as a tiny little monument and a big tower, which I’m sure was used for all kinds of things.  Alissa and I climed to the very summit, took some pictures and then found a spot to eat our picnic lunch we had bought. We had sandwiches, pringles, cheese, and La Mie Câline Super Cookies!  We ate over looking the Spanish side of the Pyranees on two of the many rocks that jutted out form the ground all over the place.We both got stung by some sort of plant or bug and had a stinging feeling for a little while. We went and saw the wild horses that had made their way to the top of the mountain. There were many new mothers and happy new foals and colts. It wasn’t that chilly but we did wish we had not worn thongs and had worn proper shoes.  After about an hour or so we decided to catch the train back down. We talked to a lovely German couple the whole way down the hill and once at the bottom we looked quickly around at the souvenir shop, bought nothing (except I bought a 1.5l bottle of cold water) and then went looking for bathrooms and the bus stop.  We were worried that we would have enough money for the bus and the Post Offic ATM machine was out of service. We entertained the thought of hitchhiking or bumming a ride back to St. Jean de Luz but after we found out it was only €2 for the bus we waited for 30 minutes and caught the bus back to St. Jean de Luz just in time to catch our 5:41 TGV back to dax.

Once we got to Dax we went and sat at a café and got something to drink and talked for about a half hour and then headed over to Isabel and Fernando’s for our last final meal together. Fernando had cooked up a concoction of angel hair noodels, peas, chicken, peppers, carrots, and soy sauce. It was actually really really good. They drove us home late and we said out teary eyes goodbyes as they are leaving us on Tuesday and Alissa and I will not see them before they leave. Georgia will see Isabel at school tomorrow.

If you want to see pictures from yesterday click the photo below!

This post is stored in the category of Contains Photo(s), Contains Video(s), Made in France, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Alissa Morano, Basque Country, Belly Dancing, Col de Saint Ignace, Dax, Féria, Fernando and Isabel, Georgia Irving, Kermesse, La Fête de Dax, La Fête du Quartier St. Pierre, La Mie Câline, La Rhune, Le Basque Bondissant, Le Petit Train de la Rhune, Magic Show, Orange Ball, Sare, St. Jean de Luz, TGV, Vino Griego, Vino Griego et Foulards

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I really enjoy the Olympics and always have ever since I really paid attention to them in 1996. I know there is a lot of conflict surrounding this year’s Olympics but I believe that by having them and NOT boycotting them we are able to open communications lines with multiple countries (not just China) that have some Human Rights issues…I’m excited they are here!!

This post is stored in the category of Contains Video(s), Made in USA, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Beijing, China, Human Rights, Olympics, Olympics 2008

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