Sights & sounds

I feel as though I've seen/done so much in the past two and a half weeks that I couldn't begin to describe everything in detail.
My favorite mercet thing was "corre fuego", which is like a parade of fireworks down the streets. People are advised to wear non flammable clothing because the sparks go everywhere. It's completely ridiculous and crazy. "Let's give a bunch of kids fireworks and wine and let them run around." And somehow there are never any deaths? I don't know how they do it....
There was also a pretty dulce parade called "desfile de los gigantes" which involved really large dolls....
I went to an opera/flamenco show at La Palau de la Musica which was fantastic. Makes me want to learn flamenco singing, although that seems pretty obscure. We had nosebleed section seats and couldn't even see the stage but we moved over when the lady wasn't looking and things turned out okay.
That night I met up with my friend from high school who happens to be studying here as well. I ended up going with her and her friends to a discoteca that was free. It was pretty fun because I love dancing, but it seemed that most of the kids were american/foreign, but not spanish. They also played A LOT of american music, which was kind of a bummer. The club was way far from my house and I knew I couldn't walk home, but I also didn't want to take a cab. I decided to wait with some people until the metro opened back up. This turned out to be a disaster because we were waiting at a station that didn't have a train coming for an hour, so then we had to walk to another one.....I was home after six, just around sunrise.
The next day it was raining so I met up with a friend for cafe and we went to the picasso musuem. I'm no art history student, but I definetly thought Picasso was an italian...guess not. It was interesting to learn about all the ways in which Barcelona inspired him as an artist. Usually painting doesn't do much for me, but I really felt something when I looked at his sketches.