Feria de Abril

This week was the second biggest holiday in Sevilla after Semana Santa: Feria. I’m not quite sure how it came about, but it basically is just one huge party in Los Remedios, a district in the city. A billion casetas, or tents, are set up, some being ‘private’ that people pay dues for all year to be a part of, and others are ‘public’ that people like me could go into.

Inside these tents, tables, chairs, bars, live music, and a stage are set up so people just hang out and drink and dance flamenco, or the sevillano dance, all night. Literally. People stay out until insane hours of the night every night this week. And the kids don’t have school most of the week either, and many stores have special ‘Feria’ week hours. It’s nuts.

And a majority of the women walk around in their flamenco dresses, which are absolutely GORGEOUS. They’re in the craziest colors and patterns, most of them polka dot but others paisley or solid. It’s funny because everyone walks through the city as if it’s perfectly normally to be wearing these huge dresses with insane colors and flowers pinned to their hair, when for anyone else visiting it looks more like Halloween night or a costume party.

And it’s also perfectly normal for women to spend 300 or more euros on one of these flamenco dresses. And my Señora informed me that women usually own at least 4 of them to alternate during the week, because of course you can’t be seen wearing the same dress everyday. AND, trends of the dresses change every year, so then you have to buy a new one every year or so.

Because of the rain, I didn’t go out to the Feria festivities until Wednesday, when the rain let up a little. A huge entrance gate was set up on the Feria grounds, and there were thousands and thousands of people walking around in their dresses and dancing in the casetas. We found our way to the public tent, where we bought some of the traditional Feria drink, white wine mixed with 7-up.

After watching the dancing for a bit, we headed to the amusement park right next to the Feria grounds, and walked around there and ate gofres, or waffles with chocolate and whipped cream. It was pretty funny watching all the teenage girls in their dresses go on the rides.

On Thursday, we didn’t feel like going to Feria again since we’d gotten a good taste of it before, so we went to the Contemporary Art Museum instead. It was pretty interesting because it’s inside an old monastery, so it was cool seeing both the art and the old monastery. It was horrible getting back, though, because there was so much traffic from Feria that it took a good hour and a half to get back by bus. That night Laura and I went to see The Game Plan, or Papá por Sorpresa, in the movie theater. It was dubbed in Spanish, and after you get over how it looks a bit weird, it’s not that bad. I understood almost all the movie, and I thought it was really cute.

Friday we headed to the nearby town Jerez for the day. They’re known for their wine and sherry, so we went on a tour of a bodega and tasted a few of the drinks. Saturday we went to Ronda, a town almost as ‘gorges’ as Ithaca. It’s built around these huge gorges, so we hiked for a while and wandered through the town. Sunday we went back to Feria to check out the horses, because my Señor kept raving about how amazing they were. And it was pretty cool, there were a billion and a half horses and carriages carrying around people in Flamenco dresses. And that was all of Feria.

Now I shall go attempt to do work. Hasta luego!