Hey guys!Sorry I've been a little late on this blog but this last week has been really crazy. I officially have about two weeks left in beautiful Seville before I get on my flight back to the states. As of right now I am in a really good place in terms of my feelings of leaving. I win both ways. One way, I have two weeks left to enjoy the city; the other, I have two weeks before I come home and see all the friends and family that I miss so much. This last week was my "spring break", I guess you could say. Have I mentioned enough times in this blog that school here is an absolute joke? I really am learning a lot in my classes but at the same time, we have had two separate weeks off from school in April: one for Semana Santa and the other for Feria de Abril (I'll explain what that is a little later).
For the first weekend of our break Steph, Kels and I flew to Palma de Mallorca, which is a island off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean. . It's kind of the Florida of Spain. It's very low key with a lot of older people. All the tourists are either German or British and nothing else. It's known for it's beautiful, clear, quiet , white sand beaches. Jack, our British friend who also met us in Paris, also came to meet us in Palma. A lot of our other trips have been to big cities and have been pretty tourist-y so we decided to come to Palma to do only one thing: relax. We were able to find really cheap plane tickets and a really cheap hotel on the coast that overlooked the ocean so our plan was to just lay out all day. The city itself was pretty quiet because it wasn't their busy season. A couple of the days it was rainy and cloudy, so we were forced to stay in our hotel room and rent movies on I-tunes, but when the weather was nice, it was absolutely beautiful. One morning when Jack had already left, Kels, Steph and I went down to the breakfast buffet that our resort had. We were waiting in line to get omelets when the Spanish woman making them asked "Did you guys win yesterday?" We were really confused. Then she said "Your basketball team is good, isn't it?" After talking to her for a little while and being pretty confused on what she was talking about, we realized that she thought that WE were on a basketball team and we had come to Palma to play. I'm 6 feet tall, Steph is like 5 foot 9 and Kels is like 5 foot 6 so I guess you could say we're collectively tall. Instead of correcting her, we just went along with it. She continued to ask us about it the rest of breakfast and the other times that we saw her that week. We just smiled, nodded and said "sí, sí".
We got back to Seville on Tuesday with the rest of the week free to enjoy the Feria de Abril (April Fair). Now, Feria is really hard to explain to someone that doesn't know anything about it and, truthfully, I didn't really know what to expect until I got there. So hang in there while I try to explain it. First of all, it is a HUGE fair. It was started about 100 years ago in order to protest the foreign influence that was coming from the west. As you can imagine, it is about as traditionally Spanish as you can get. During this week, the ENTIRE city shuts down. Stores are closed, the streets in the center of town are almost completely vacant because the fair is located on the outside of town. It is conveniently located 2 blocks from my house. The fair grounds are huge. Half of the fairground is taken over by carnival rides. The other half is taken over by literally hundreds of "casetas" all in rows. This area actually has streets with names with the casetas lining them. Each caseta is a tent much like one that you would have a wedding reception in but smaller. Each one has a dance floor, tables, a bar and restaurant in the back. Almost all of these casetas are private. They are owned by a family and the whole family will invite their whole extended family and all of their friends. They are very hard to get and if you have one, it has probably belonged to your family for many, many years. If you are a native Sevilliano, you usually go to the Feria grounds with many different casetas you can go to because you know a lot of people. These casetas are by invite only and each caseta has a security card that is required in order to enter it. There are even guards at each door. If you are a foreigner who's just coming to the fair, you're probably out of luck. Out of many 500 casetas, there is only 1 large public one that is open to everyone. Inside the tents, there is music, dancing, eating and spending time with your whole family and all of your friends. Imagine 500 small wedding receptions going on side by side in a giant fairground and that's basically how the Feria is.
Also, in true Sevilliano style, there are more traditional aspects as well. Women wear flamenco dresses and men wear suits and ties. Some of the men go all out and wear the short horse riding jackets. EVERY sevilliana woman wears a Flamenco dress. My señora, Pillar, has 3 and Piluca, her daughter, has 4. Women of all ages wear them, from the babies to the grandmas. Take a look at the pictures I took, but the dress also includes wearing a shawl and a flower in your hair. These dresses cost anywhere from 150 to 5000 euros (That's like 200 to 7,000 dollars). I talked to Steph's Spanish dad and he told me that he bought a dress for each of his daughters and the two dresses cost him "only" 2,000 euros. How they afford these things, I have no idea, but it does tell you just how serious the Sevillianos are about the fair. Needless to say, I did not buy a dress. Steph found one for 150 euros which, she was told by many Spaniards, is really cheap. I decided to do what Spaniards do when they've worn their dress 3 days in a row. I put on a regular dress, bought a shawl and put a flower in my hair. Thankfully, I didn't feel too out of place. Also, instead of popular music, only Flamenco music is played and only Sevillianas is danced. Sevillianas is a type of Flamenco that is particular to the Feria. Each sevillianas has for different sets of partner dances within it. Thankfully, Steph, Kels and I took a class in Sevilla that taught us all four dances so we were ready when we got there. Ever sevilliano knows this dance by heart. I personally think it's pretty complicated but the natives make it look so easy. They never get bored of dancing it for hours and hours.
So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday AND Saturday night, Kels, Steph and I were at the fairgrounds. The earliest we went home was 4 in the morning, the latest was 7 in the morning. Lucky for us, we did have a few casetas to go to. Steph's family owns a caseta. Maria (the 19 year old girl who Steph lives with) let us go to a few casetas that her friends owned and we also have some other Spanish friends who let us come into theirs. So basically, I spent 4 nights in a row, eating Spanish food, dancing to Spanish music, wearing Spanish clothes and having fun until the sun rose. I went on rides and I made new friends. I will go as far to say that the Feria was the most fun that I've had this whole semester. One particular night, we couldn't get a hold of any of our Spanish friends to go into a caseta so we just walked around. Within 5 minutes, we had 3 Spanish guys again our age following us begging us to come into their caseta. We thought they were really creepy but they would not leave us alone. We told them that we were going to get some dessert so we couldn't come. They followed and then BOUGHT our dessert for us, while continuing to tell us we had to come back to their caseta. We figured we would stop by, grab a free drink and leave. Turns out that going to that caseta was one of the best decisions we made all weekend. We walked into their caseta and there was a HUGE group of Spanish people our age who welcomed us with open arms. The guys were all super nice and super funny. The girls even danced with us and were patient when we forgot a dance step. We spent probably 4 hours in that caseta before we called it a night. I don't think I will ever forget how much fun it was. I don't think I'll ever forget how amazing that whole week was. It was a dream. I've never had so much fun in my whole life. I also got the amazing chance to really experience a true, traditional Spanish custom. It also cemented the fact that I am fluent in Spanish. I was able to have conversations with my Spanish friends and with strangers with almost no problems. I had been hearing about and looking forward to the Feria this entire semester and I will have to say that I cannot think of a better way to end my time here in Sevilla.
Now it's Monday and it's time to go back to the real world (By real world, I mean back to Seville, which is a dream in itself). I was walking to school today and things are still closed with signs that was "cerrado: descanso de la Feria" which means "Closed: resting from Feria". As you can see, people are still recuperating from the week long party. I officially have 10 days left in Sevilla before we go to Madrid for the LAST weekend and then fly back to the states. That means that I have 10 days left to pack up my stuff, write 2 papers, study for my exams and try to soak up as much of the city as I can. This will be my last blog before I get home so that I can make sure that my time is devoted to all the things I have to do. Please keep watch out for a last and final entry once I get back to the states on the 19th of May.
Also, check out my pictures!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2391197&id=10235591&l=6371c0d933
