The Festivals of San Juan and San Pedro came to an end with fireworks at midnight on Sunday. I loved being able to participate in and see the various traditions, concerts, celebrations, and everything else that helped make the first ten days of my experience in Spain unforgettable. Last Friday, after my excursion to the castles, I went to a concert in La Plaza Mayor with a few friends. The band was listed as a Jamaican orchestra so we were excited to see a steel drum performance. There was nothing of the sort. Instead, it was more of a spectacle consisting of various popular songs and dances from around the world, acrobatics, and odd images playing in the background. We had a great time.
Dancing is Spain is worlds different than dancing in the United States. "Grinding" is replaced with actual face-to-face dance steps. The people dance to have fun and without embarrassment. And just about everyone dances. There were whole families dancing, couples from every stage of life, friends, single people, anyone. And this type of dancing is what happens everywhere, not just in the streets, but in the clubs, too. I seriously love it. I told my boyfriend we are going to be taking dance classes when I get back. He misses me so much that he agreed.
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| The "Jamaican Orchestra" |
On Saturday, I went to a rugby game to see los lobos de Segovia play another club team. My friends and I got a little lost along the way. Apparently, I'm not any better at understand directions in
Spanish than I am in English. We ended up asking three or four people along the way of trying to find the pitch. The problem with directions here is that the roads aren't labeled clearly and there aren't many distinct landmarks outside of the historical quarter. To add to that, all of the roads have nicknames, so the name posted is probably not the one you were told. Also, three of the four people we asked had absolutely no idea what we were talking about. After about an hour of wandering around, we finally found the game and we even got there before it started (muchas gracias a both Spanish and rugby time.) I had a lot of fun watching the match with some of my friends who had never seen rugby before. Unfortunately, we had to leave the match early, but I like to think Segovia won. ¡Va lobos!
Later that night, some of us met up for dinner and ended up sharing a giant box of fresh sushi. There was about 50 rolls with everything ranging from fish eggs to octopus to things we couldn't identify (the menu was in Spanish.) I tried both the fish eggs and the octopus and actually liked them. Spain is the country that eats the second most fish in the world and all of the cities get shipments of fresh fish every morning. This was definitely some of the best sushi I have ever had. After that, we met up with others from our program and experienced the nightlife. According to my professor, there are over 20 bars just in the small city of Segovia.
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| The rugby pitch overlooked the mountains. It was beautiful. |
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| I live right across the street from this sushi place and it's reasonably priced. That's a dangerous combination. |
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We usually meet up at the aqueducts. It's a pretty central location from everyone's houses.
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Sunday was the last day of the festival. I spent a good part of the day doing homework and trying to catch up on sleep. During the normal siesta time (3-5pm) I went for a jog and found a really nice, hilly path that leads me along my favorite structure, the aqueduct.
All week long my host mom was talking about the carnival and was so sad that I hadn't gone to it yet. So, I got some friends together and we headed to the fair. It was a riot. It was pretty similar to the fairs you see in big parking lots in the United States, just with way less safety regulations. Two of my friends and I rode the "DishDrop" which was a whirly-twirly ride that had basically no guard rails around it. Anyone could walk up the to the ride while it was in motion and get squashed (but no one did.) It was totally worth 3€. Then, we walked around the rest of the carnival to see the games and the rides. One of my friends spotted the most hideous prize I have ever seen in my life and as a group we spent around 12€ trying to win it. And we did. We were able to see the fireworks signaling the end of El Día de San Pedro and the festivals. We all walked home with sore cheeks and abs from smiling and laughing so much.
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| I am most likely going to post pictures of the aqueduct every single time it's somewhat relevant :) |
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| Yep, we paid 12€ for that. Apparently, it's a popular children's TV show character, which is enough go give me nightmares. |
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