Feria de Abril
Friday we all headed to the Feria grounds for my first taste of the famous affair. Let me tell you, it was more than I could have every imagined. Feria de Abril: The annual fair of Sevilla, beginning two weeks after Semana Santa (Holy Week), and the first fair of the spring in Spain. The fair grounds are held in the Sevilla barrio of Los Remedios, and lasts from midnight on a Monday until midnight the following Sunday (or, Monday, depending on how you look at it). People usually go from about 3pm to 7pm, go home to siesta, and return from about 10:30pm until sunrise. Think of it like Spain's version of the State Fair, but classier (and way more colorful). First of all, we had been advised to buy Feria dresses to wear to the fair, but (stupidly) decided not to buy them: we're foreigners, after all, and thought we would stick out more wearing them than not. We were wrong. Everywhere you looked, men and women were decked out in Flamenco-like dresses and sharp suits with cordobés(like flat-topped, flat-rimmed sombreros)-- and we hadn't even reached the fair grounds yet. Horse-and-buggy carriages passed us like cars, with the women holding parasols (no, not umbrellas: legit, 19th/20th century parasols) and even the horses dressed to the nines. Once we finally reached the fair grounds, I felt like I had stepped back in time. We were surrounded by "neighborhoods" of casetas: little tent-like, temporary houses that were either privately owned or publicly supervised. Parades of carriages and crowds of men and women aback horses filled the streets, passing underneath rows and rows of ferrocarrillos (brightly-colored, circular string lights). It was a dream. We spent a couple hours admiring the various casetas (the private ones were the most impressive) and checking out the fair rides before we finally succumbed to the heat. We spotted a recently-vacated corner of a public caseta and settled down. It was crowded, but mostly low-key; groups of people filled each table, talking and visiting. There were a couple people dancing Sevillano on/near the stage to some pre-recorded Sevillano music. I was amazed that so many people knew how to dance Sevillano (like flamenco, but more relaxed), but it wasn't until the band got on stage that things really livened up. All of a sudden, half the room was on their feet, dancing and laughing and cheering each other on. A couple of boys next to us took to the floor, trying to imitate the women dancing, which was entertaining for everyone. But, like I said, most everyone knew how to dance Sevillano, and those that didn't quickly picked it up. It was then that I realized this was just another Sevillan tradition: like I had grown up a longhorn fan, singing the Texas Fight song in my toddler-size UT cheer uniform, these people had grown up learning Sevillano. But the tradition wasn't restricted to a sports team or a neighborhood or social class: it took over the entire town. It was beautiful. After another hour or so, we headed back to our pisos to nap and eat dinner befor heading back to the fair grounds for the night. By the time we arrived at the fair grounds, it was about 12:30am, and the party was in full swing. We ran into usome other people in our program upon reaching the gates, and the group of us headed to the nearest public caseta: this one looked more like Feria's stand-in nightclub-- it was filled with college kids and young adults talking and dancing and, predictably, taking over the street outside. Before I knew it, nearly three hours had passed and my friends and I were headed to the carnival. It was already 3:30am, and if our plan was to make it to sunrise (which it was), we needed to refuel. We stopped at a nearby tent to get (what else?) an order of french fries, rest our feet, and regain some energy. For me and my cousin, though, that wasn't quite enough to do the trick. That's when we saw The Slingshot. It only took about 30 seconds of watching the "wrecking-ball" (as Shelby so aptly described it) shoot into the sky--passengers and all--that I somehow thought it would be a great idea to do it, too. Before I knew it, I was out 10 euros, holding a flimsy paper ticket, standing just two spots from the front of the line. I'm not sure if it was the rebujitos or the delirium that comes with being awake at 4:00am, but the nerves never really hit me until I was walking up the steps, crouching into the metal cage, and being buckled in by the attendant. That's when I started freaking out. Just a little bit. But there was no going back. So, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and just as I was about to exhale---- BOOM. The wrecking-ball did it for me. We were thrown into the air, spinning and falling and bouncing this way and that, up and down, for what felt like a good five minutes (although it couldn't have been more than one), all the while to the soundtrack of Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball," ironically enough, which was blaring from the nearby bumper-car tent. It was terrifying (I was almost positive at one point that the cage would open and we would fly out) but exhilarating. And it definitely woke us up. Some how, we managed to pass the time until it was finally time to head to the river for the sunrise. It was so worth it. That was the longest day of my life, but definitely one of the best, and definitely one I will never forget. Thanks for an incredible weekend, Feria. I'll be back for you, this time with my own traje de flamenca.