This past week, Sevilla celebrated its festival called "Feria de Abril." Basically what this consists of is a week-long party filled with drinking, singing, dancing, music, and lots of decorations and lights. On Monday night, the festival started with the "alumbrado de la portado," the lighting of the main entrance to feria. The lights were turned on at midnight and the party began! In the feria grounds, there are thousands of "casetas" (tents) that line the streets. There are public tents and also private ones which you need to be invited into (there are literally body guards standing outside the tent to make sure you are allowed in); the public and private tents have a totally different atmosphere. The public tents usually consist of big groups of Spanish teenagers (usually because all of their friends can't fit into one private tent), Americans, and creepy old men who are trying to hit on the Spanish teenagers and/or Americans. The private tents, on the other hand, are much more intimate and allow you to experience a more "authentic" feria. The private tents usually belong to families, so you need to be a friend of the family (or a friend of a friend of the family in my case) in order to get inside. My roommate and I were very fortunate to have made Spanish friends this semester, because we got to experience feria in the private tents instead of the public ones. We went to our friend Antonio's tent a couple of nights (a guy we met on a bus trip to Madrid) and got to meet a lot of his friends which was neat. One of them was a really good flamenco dancer, and it was fun to watch him dance with all the ladies. Throughout the week we also went to our friend Fernando and our friend Nacho's tents which was really fun. Fernando is the son of a fashion designer that Natalia works with, and we met Nacho through CIEE.
The streets in feria are lined with really pretty lights, and there are flamenco dancing and singing break-outs everywhere (in the streets and in public/private tents, so literally EVERYWHERE). It's really awesome because people of all ages dance and sing; nobody is shy. The official drinks of feria are manzanilla (a white wine that is REALLY strong), and rebujito (a mixture of manzanilla and Sprite). We got free drinks (and food!) in the private tents which was pretty convenient considering I am a poor college student.
Feria probably has been my favorite week in Sevilla thus far. It is like a carefree fantasy world, and I hope everyone gets the chance to experience it someday!
VIVA LA FERIA!!! :)
Picture #1: La portada de feria (the main entrance to feria)... there is an airplane on the top of the structure because it is celebrating the 100th year anniversary of aviation in Spain
Picture #2: Me in front of the portada
Picture #3: Me and Natalia with Antonio and a couple of his friends (Antonio is the one next to me)
Picture #4: Lights in the streets of feria
Picture #5: Me in front of the portada again
Picture #6: Some of the pretty flamenco dresses
Picture #7: Me in a caseta
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