Barcelona on fire

Last night was the Night of St John - a wonderful night for the very religious Barcelonans, who celebrated by hitting the streets armed with crackers, bungers and throwndowns.

The festivities began around 5.00pm when we rolled into town. We thought it would hit a peak around 10pm and then everybody would go home and we could get some sleep. But no! The bungers got louder and louder and more frequent as the night wore on, finally reaching a crescendo in the park outside the hositpal across the road from where we are staying. And is seemed to be specifically about the noise - not the pretty sparkles.

There were plenty of times my heart lept into my mouth the noise was so sudden and loud - dare I say it was like living in a war zone. Imagine what is was like for the poor patients lying sick in bed in the hospital. Every now and then we´d hear the sound of a police siren or a fire truck and we´d think that was going to be the end of it, but no such luck.

We switched the light out at half past midnight. I chose to consciously not hear the carcophony, but Marky couldn´t block it out. He said he could see families with children aged three to five gathering to watch the madness. I am not surprised - I had seen a boy of about eight walking down the street earlier, a box of throwdowns tucked under his arm, his hand reaching in and grabbing them to throw on the footpath, all as he walked along casually with his parents.

Suddenly I see why the Australian Government made it illegal to posess fireworks in Australia. They are downright dangerous and what´s more, if their use is uncontrolled, they are a total nuisance. Never mind the blowing off of hands, eyeballs, and people´s letter boxes. At least with Sydney´s regular fireworks it is limited to one area, it has a predetermined start and finish, and everybody can then get some sleep.

Not so for us last night - another burst went off at 4.00am, then again at 6.00am. I think this can´t be a Christian celebration because it´s too violent. Maybe it´s a cover up for some long lost ancient paegan ritual that required people to make loud noises to scare away the bad spirits before harvest... or something like that. Whatever. Muchos gracias Spain!