Seville Snapshots: Baby’s First Goose Barnacle

July 29, 2012 by · 7 Comments

Justin’s idea to spend our hard-earned cash money stemmed from a desire to indulge in Galicia’s finest, the shellfish that give lifeblood to the region’s economy. I had been a few times to Meson O Galego and eaten all the regional dishes they offered, washed down with a cold glass of Albariño wine. The deed was done. Between Justin, Scott and I, we split a 46€ mariscada, replete with crusty-shelled goodies.

Plump shrimp, a lobster tail, razor clams and crab legs all ended up on my plate as I wrapped up a phone call with my boss. I reached for more clams and fished around to see if any coquinas had made it onto the tray while the other teachers looked on, probably wondering how I could eat just so much seafood. For someone who comes from a landlocked, beef-producing state, my affection for all things aquatic didn’t begin until Spain.

Only one type of crustacean on the tray remained untouched. I’d seen the likes of it around supermarkets and in the windows of high-end seafood places. Percebes. Goose barnacles, or percebes, as they’re known in the Galician tongue, are filter-feeding crustaceans whose very sight caused my stomach to turn. Far too expensive to pick up in the supermarket for a snack (my local mercado sells them for 36€/100g!!), I’d never dared order them, lest I hate them and be none the richer.

It was now or never. Justin patiently explained that the coarse outside, which resembled a closed claw, was meant for nothing more than to protect the fleshy, edible part from the constant battering of the waves along the shore, and that the leathery suction cups were not to be eaten, either. One must twist the leathery part and pull, revealing one long, red part to be consumed. But, ojo! he warned, they squirt. Napkin tucked into my collar, I pulled with all my might, tearing the leathery body off of the claw. I consumed. It tasted like a sea urchin – like grainy, salty water. I tried a few more, for good measure, but my face above reveals just how much I loved them – I’ll stick to zamburiñas, por favor!

If you’d like to contribute your photos from Spain and Seville, please send me an email at sunshineandsiestas @ gmail.com with your name, short description of the photo, and any bio or links directing you back to your own blog, Facebook page or twitter. There’s plenty more pictures of gorgeous Seville on Sunshine and Siesta’s new Facebook page!

Filed Under: Coruña, culture shock, food, Galicia, gastronomy, la vida loca, photo post, Seville Shots, summer camp, the north · Tagged: ,

Strange Food Spotlight: Ears in Madrid

June 27, 2012 by · 9 Comments

I’m thrilled that my dear foodie friend and ex-sevillana Lauren Aloise suggested we do a series of blog exchanges. Lauren is a talented writer and brilliant cook, and her blog Spanish Sabores is a great resource on Spanish food, recipes and dining in Madrid. Our first exchange? Writing about strange foods in our respective cities – mine is a reprise of my springtime favorite, snails. Be sure to check out her Madrid Food tour if you’re ever in Spain’s capital for an authentic food tour with someone who knows plenty!

Spain is full of bizarre foods, including insect-looking shellfish, any organ you can imagine, slimy snails and Madrid’s famed specialty, pig ear.

El Tapón: Oreja a la plancha

source

Oreja a la plancha (grilled pigs’ ears) is a Madrileño delicacy and you can find the dish being served in the city’s most authentic tapas bars and neighborhood taverns. Other establishments opt to serve oreja en salsa, a tasty dish of stewed ear served with either a mild tomato sauce or a spicy brava sauce.

So what does pig’s ear taste like? Well, it is actually pretty delicious! They are crunchy on the outside because of the cartilage (but not too chewy either) with a great flavor that is really complemented by the spicy brava sauce (my recommendation). I know they aren’t for everyone, but why not try something different with a group of friends the next time you are in Madrid?

The best place to try oreja a la plancha is definitely La Oreja del Oro, located at Calle de la Victoria, 9 right in the center of Madrid near the Plaza de la Puerta del Sol. It is an authentic Madrid tapas bar, so if you don’t like the oreja you have plenty of other delicious Spanish specialties to choose from.
casa toni patatas bravas

Source

A Quick Recipe for Salsa Brava 

1/2 onion

1 garlic clove

1 chopped medium tomato

1 t sugar

1 t cayenne pepper

1 t smoked Spanish paprika (hot or sweet)

A splash of sherry vinegar (you can substitute red wine vinegar if you want)

1 t flour

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

 Instructions: 

1. Brown the onion and garlic in the oil at a low heat.

2. Add the cayenne, flour, and paprika and stir constantly for 1 minute so that nothing sticks or burns.

3. Add the diced tomato and season with the sugar. Cook at medium for 15 minutes.

4. Add the vinegar and mix.

5. When it is reduced to the right texture, take off the heat and let cool.

6. Season with salt and pepper then puree in the blender and you have your brava sauce!

Lauren Aloise is the founder of Madrid Food Tour. An optimistic entrepreneur and self-proclaimed professional tapa taster, shewrites,tweets, andcooks out of her tiny Madrileño apartment.

Filed Under: culture shock, gastronomy, guiri atope, ham, Madrid, recipes, Tapas, typical Spanish · Tagged: , ,

For the Love of the Dove: El Rocío

May 31, 2012 by · 19 Comments

I’ve never been one for Bucket Lists, but often set travel goals for myself. When I was 20, I decided to do a 25 before 25, making a list of my top-five destinations when I moved to Spain two years later. Twenty-twelve meant no resolutions, just a few ideas for travel goals during 2012: one new country, one off-beat travel activity and one nationally recognized festival, in Spain or not.

It’s the end of May and I’ve just completed my goals. I think I shall hashtag this as #travellover. Last weekend, my sevillana half orange, La Dolan, and I went to visit Spain’s lushiest Virgin Mother, La Virgen del Rocío.

The festival of El Rocío is one-part religious pilgirimage, one-part full-blown fair and two parts party: those devoted to the Virgen, known as the Lady Of the Marshes or the White Dove (Nuestra Señora de Las Marismas, for the hermitage’s proximity to the protected swampland of Doñana National Park, or the Blanca Paloma), make a pilgrimage from their towns to the immaculate white church outside the village of Almonte. This can be done on foot, on horseback, or by riding in oxen-driven carrozas, a type of temporary covered wagon. Arriving on or before the Saturday of Pentecost, often sleeping and eating outdoors, the rocieros then gather in El Rocío for a series of masses, parades and the famed salta a la reja.

We arrived just before noon on Pentecost Sunday. I wore my celestial blue traje de gitana, coral flower on my head, while Cait opted for a breezy skirt. It was over 90º out, but the rocieros were in their typical costumes: the women in trajes de gitana or faldas rocieras, a skirt with ruffles suited for walking, and high leather boots. The male counterpart is a traje corto, with tight cropped pants made for horseback riding. I made a face at Cait, suddenly very hot with the sleeves of my dress and restricted in movement.

The whole village of El Rocío is like a town straight out of a Wild West film set – hitching posts set in front of modest houses, horses clopping gallantly around the sandy streets. It was difficult to walk with my espadrilles while dodging carriages, and sand soon filled my shoes.

As we neared the stark white church, a beacon against the bright blue Andalusian sky, we decided to visit the village’s most famous resident before going any further. As we neared, the tamboril drums and simple flutes that characterize the sevillanas rocieras grew to a furor, and the crowd standing under the scalloped entrance of the hermitage suddenly parted. The Pentecost mass had just ended, and a parade of the simpecaos, the banners carried by the different religious groups, had begun.

The knots of people ebbed and moved as the 110 hermandades, yes the same kind from Holy Week, from around Spain presented their faithful before the church and moved around the village’s dusty streets. From simple to elegant, each carry a symbol of the Virgen del Rocío. The pilgrimage dates back to the 17th Century, with the hermandad from Almonte, el Matriz, being the oldest. Following the banner come women in two straight lines on either side of the simpecao, carrying long silver staffs topped with images of their brotherhood’s virgen. Their necks were emblazoned with the same silhouette in the form of heavy pendants on the end of multi-colored rope cords.

The festival at the Aldea is characterized by religious devotion, of course, but there’s much more to it. As Cait and I reflected over our first action-packed hour, we listened to other bar-goers recount their tales. Once the hermandades arrive to El Rocío through the various routes from the East, West and South, they settle into houses that look like a giant corral or hotel around a central patio, with room for the carrozas and horses behind. Gines, Olivares, Villamanrique and Triana have enormous patios, and we peeked in to see the merriment between beers. People sing, dance and pray for up to one week during the pilgrimage and the celebration.

Feeling refreshed, we decided on visiting the Virgin herself. The temple is simple, white-washed, save the golden retablao and a few frescoes in the corners of the nave. Cola de batas, the boundy ruffles of the traje rociero, showed under confessional booths, and the romeros prayed to the Virgen Mother, who was kept safely behind a cast iron gate, called a reja. After praying the rosary that night at midnight, she would “jump over” the reja and be paraded around the village on the shoulders of revelers, called the salta a la reja. This is the culmination of the week’s events, and it signals the abandonment of the recinto and the camino back home.

Outside, we bought candles in the gift shop to take to the adjacent prayer chapel. There’s a life-sized statue of the Rocío that people press their candles to before lighting them and finding a place to prop them up. The whole chapel was cool, smoky and silent – a far cry from the music emanating from the casas outside.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the streets, popping into bars for a beer (and relief from the hot midday sun), visiting my students from Olivares and trying to keep the sand out of our shoes. We got on the bus six hours after we’d arrived, absolutely exhausted and still bigger feriantas than rocieras.

Have you been to El Rocío or done the peregrinación? What was your experience like, especially on the road towards the Aldea? For more pictures, be sure to check out my Facebook page and become a fan for up-to-date photos and posts about Spain and Seville.

Filed Under: andalú, Andalucia, Andalusia Tourism, culture shock, dance, Feria, Holy Week, la vida loca, photo post, Places with Encanto, religion, Rocio, Rural Tourism, Seville, Seville Lore, Spain Travel, Spanish Traditions, Triana, typical Spanish · Tagged: , , ,

Death in the Afternoon

May 24, 2012 by · 15 Comments

Like it or not, bullfighting is intrinsic in sevillano culture. Hemingway’s favorite pastime is both hemmed and hawed and considered a great art form, but this piece of southern folklore is alive and well in Seville’s Maestranza bullring, which hosts some of the most revered festejos and brings in the biggest names in bullfighting.

Aside from the gory part of bullfighting, I personally love the image of a bullfighter. Slight body, slicked, jet-black hair, traje de luces glimmering in the afternoon sun. What’s more, the plaza de toros in Seville is de leyenda – the mustard yellow and white colonnades offset the bluest of skies and the yellow albero dirt that lines the elliptical plaza. The pomp and circumstance of the whole thing is as breathtaking as a Virgin passing silently over the Guadalquivir River during Holy Week, alit with candles. And, really, I just wanted to bring Camarón along to get closer.

We enter the gates of the Maestranza by way of a narrow, uphill alley, the same the bullfighters take past snapping camera flashes. The toreros are celebrities in their own right – rich, often handsome and ready to face death by way of a 500-kilo animals with two piercing horns and plenty of mala ostia. Our seats are in the sol – sunny – section, but the cloud cover in the late afternoon means we’re pleasantly comfortable and have paid 20€ less for the event. People surround us on all sides – old men in caps with their grandchildren next to them munching on sunflower seeds, wealthy sevillanos with sideburns and fancy seat covers, guiris like us with cameras poised.

The clip clop of horses sounds in the inner bowels of the arena below me. Pages with long plumes enter the ring as the band plays from high in the sombra section. They present their hats and the bullfighters enter gallantly, a cluster of photographers crouching as the toreros gaze at the crowd before them.

We’ve come to a novillada, where young bullfighters gain experience on smaller bulls and often in bullrings of a lesser division. But here, in the Maestranza of Seville, the bulls are agile, strong and weigh in at almost 500 kilos. We’ll see each – Conchi Ríos, Emilio Huertas and Álvaro Sanlúcar – fight two bulls. One of the opponents will die, and the other survive.

At 7pm sharp, the Puerta Gayola opens and the sounding of two cornets pierce the silent arena. Out comes Medialuna, and his statistics are announced on a placard over the door. Despite his size, he seems a bit flojillo as Conchi measures him up. Bullfighting is traditionally a male sport, but Conchi is treated equally, her cuadrilla or band of picadores, banderilleros and mozo de espada as grand as any. Using a heavy pink and yellow cape, called a capote, they measure the bull’s strength though a series of passes known as a verónica during the first third of the act. Conchi has a matador’s body and only the lavender colored ribbon in her hair gives away her gender.

The clip-clopping commences and the picaderos enter the ring through a gate adjacent to our seats. Fully armored, the horses are blindfolded and I cringe as the whole weight of the animal nearly knocks over the horse. A long rod with a hook on the end is driven between Medialuna’s shoulder blades. Conchi’s banderilleros, the three men designated to put the small flags into the bull’s mighty back take wing. The second act of the tragedy comes at a price – the bull is weakened due to the loss of blood, and it seems certain that he will meet his end. The small banderillas are fashioned after the Spanish, Andalusian and Murcian flags, paying homage to Conchi and her cuadrilla (from the region of Murcia) and the plaza.

Once the banderillas have been fixed, making the bull look as if it had won ribbons at a state fair, Conchi takes off her montera hat, saluting to the crowd. Now comes the final faena of the fight, where she manuevers the muleta, a small red cape, around the bull, using short grunts and movement to make the animal barge towards her. Though the animal passes far away from her, I’m intrigued by her foray into the sport.

Her first attempt to drive the sword between the shoulder blades, thus severing the main artery and killing the bull as cleanly as possible, is unsuccessful. Before the day is out, we’ll see five more bulls from the novilleros all hoping to present themselves as full matadors in the coming years. Álvaro Sanlúcar has a baby face and seems unsure of himself at times, while Emilio Huertas is so convincing in his second faena of the day, the band finally starts playing a paso doble as he puffs out his chest and taunts the creature.

“Oh, he’s going places,” says Cait, our resident toro aficionado. His faena is flawless (well, to me) and his efforts earn a standing ovation from the crowd. I take a kleenex out of my purse and wave it in the air, a petition to the judges to award him a special prize – an ear for his bravery and artistry. The ear is cut, and Emilio humbly takes it. Patting backs and hugging commences as he holds it triumphantly in the air and walks slowly around the ring. Fans throw flowers, hats and even painted fans at the young torero.

Placing his montera back on his head, he catapults himself out of the ring and leaves the last bull of the evening to Álvaro. He’s a fierce one who charges as soon as he catches movement. By this point, I’m already thinking about dinner (and I love bull tail, for the record). The trio walk slowly back out of the gate designated for them when it’s all over, symbolizing their triumph over death.

Not to add fuel to the fire, but have you been to a bullfight? What are your impressions of it? If you’re not into the gory stuff, please vote for me on Kaplan’s How to Teach English blog competion. My entry appeared on this blog last week, and your vote here with my name and blog URL could mean a free iPod for you, too!

Filed Under: Andalucia, culture shock, guiri atope, photo post, religion, Sevilla Center, Seville, Seville Shots, Spain, Spain Travel, Spanish Traditions, Things to do in Sevilla, toros, travel photography, typical Spanish · Tagged: , ,

Snail Tale, Part 2

May 18, 2012 by · 7 Comments

Spring in Sevilla is like a four-act play: incense and nazarenos followed by sherry and sevillanas. Next comes the heat and absence of people in the streets and, finally, signs proclaiming HAY CARACOLES. Snails here.

While the squishy little animal is enough to make any American squirm, caracoles are anticipated the same way that we wait for sweetcorn on the 4th. As soon as the temperature cools off about 8 p.m., people flock to the streets to slurp up caracoles.

And when I say slurp, I mean slurp. The snails are cooked in a spicy brown sauce and served in either a tapa or a plate. Though toothpicks are given, most people prefer to just suck out the little brown thing and the juice. If they don´t come out, well, you make a little hole with your tooth in the shell and he slides right out!
Below are my favorite places for snails, taking into account price, ambience and slurpiness.
CASA DIEGO
This tiny little locale on C/Esperanza de Triana is only open during snail season. The critters are cooked in a huge vat while the proprietor pours beer and throws montaditos on the grill. Diego is legendary, from the piping hot, spicy sauce the snails are cooked in to the plates balancing on the empty kegs of Cruzcampo outside. Calle Esperanza de Triana (Triana)
LA TIZA
La Tiza is typical cevercería: old men in pressed white shirts serving you your cervecita, tabbing it up on the wall or on the bar in front of you with chalk. Pictures of Toro Lidia adorn the walls and kids run around your feet. La Tiza has more elbow room for those pesky ones that won´t slide out, and they´re cheap, too – 2,50€ for a tapa is all you need to say for me to be there! Paseo de Europa, (Los Bermejales)
EL CANO
Named for the first sailor to complete a round-the.world trip by boat, El Cano is an old locale located in the old fisherman´s barrio between Heliópolis and Los Bermejales. The tile-lined bar is surrounded by a tall brick wall, perfect for resting your plate on during a warm night. These buggers are a bit more expensive, but slide right out and come extra spicy. This neighborhood has a lot of ambience, too – the fisherman’s chapel is right next door, and if you don’t like snails, the bar has everything from coagulated blood with onions to tripe. (Barriada El Cano)

LOS PAJARITOS / CASA RUPERTO

While this bar’s claim to fame is the roast and peppered birds (hence the name), the Novio swears that the creepies are exquisitos at Casa Ruperto. The bar is nestled into a small, dusty patio between two residential buildings, so it feels like a small block party of friends.  Calle Santa Cecelia (Triana)

EL KIKI

My old student Julián and I used to roam Sevilla while having conversation class, alternating neighborhoods by the month and stopping for beers often. As the caracol season snuck up on us, between the azahar and volantes, he touted Seville’s king of snails at Bar El Kiki. Tall wooden tables crowded the sidewalk under a wide awning, and the snails from Morocco are rumored to be the best in the city. I, sadly, have yet to try. off of José Laguillo (Santa Justa)

As I’m slurping up snails and celebrating Luna’s second birthday (for real! Where does the time go!?), head over to Interway, where I’ve been featured, along with Sarah of Love and Paella and fellow Seville blogger Fiona of Scribbler in Seville, for great expat blogs in Spain!

Filed Under: andalú, Andalucia, culture shock, food, gastronomy, Seville, Spain, Spanish Traditions, Tapas, Things to do in Sevilla · Tagged: ,

¡A Vivir, que son (seis) días (de Feria)!

May 3, 2012 by · 21 Comments

I’ve written for Backpacking Matt and The Spain Scoop about my favorite fiesta of the year: the Feria de Sevilla. Curve-hugging dresses, horse carriages and thousands of bottles of manzanilla sherry characterize the fiesta más alegre of the South just weeks after the gold-laden pasos are stored in their temples.

While in my surrogate caseta, Los Sanotes, my friend Susana’s cousin came to look for me. Yanking my beer out of my hand, she introduced me to a 60-something couple who were standing, dumbfounded, against the wall of the temporary tent. Introducing myself, they fired a million questions at me (whereas I asked just one: Would you like anything to drink?) about the history of the Feria, what it costs to be a member of a caseta and how to best go about enjoying themselves. For as much as I know about Feria – pescaíto etiquette, the names of the streets and how much a jar of rebujito costs – Feria is all about viviéndola. Being with friends, having a buen rato while wearing an enormous flower on yourself and admiring the trajes de gitana are all just a part of the week at the Recinto Ferial.

If the Feria is all about living it up, I’m all lived out. Three rides in horse carriages, two broken shoes and having to wash my flamenco dress three times to get all of the dirt out must mean that this ferianta did more than her fair share of dancing sevillanas and capturing the essence of the fair in pictures. Below each picture is a line from a sevillanas song (a four-part flamenco lite that’s heard emanating from each of the 1000+ casetas) with a link to the song on youtube. As the popular sevillana, A bailar por Sevillanas says, Si Ud. no ha visto la Feria, se la voy a enseñar (If you’ve never seen the Feria, I’m going to show it to you):

Ya huele a Feria, y olé, ya huele a feria

Once the somber processions and palios-encased Virgins are safely back at their churches, the construction of the main gate, called La Portada, is nearing completion, dry cleaners are working overtime to press volantes (ruffles), and the talk of Feria is imminent. Ya huele a Feria, it smells like Feria, and ¡olé!

La Feria se ilumina con su belleza

While the carnival rides and casetas are open, the fair doesn’t officially begin until midnight on Monday, after the traditional pescaíto fried fish dinner. The mayor waits until precisely the right moment to flip the switch that lights up the main gate, called the portada, and the thousands of paper lanterns, farolillos, that illuminate the street. Almost immediately after this moment, called the alumbrado, the bands start up and everyone starts dancing. ¡Olé, esa feria!

Vámanos pa la Feria, cariño mío

I’ve worked out a math equation: the less days that remain until the alumbrado, the more antsy I am. This year, as in years past, we’ve gone to have a few drinks before dinner on Sunday and enjoy the fairgrounds without people or horse carriages. The Calle del Infierno, with its circus tents and carnival rides, is the only really lively part, which means we get special treatment in the caseta. This year, I decided to skip out on the alumbrado and get a good night sleep, only to be restless and not fall asleep until 3am. I wanted to shake Kike awake and say, ¡Vámanos a la Feria, cariño mío!

Debajo de la portada, se la voy a enseñar

Imagine this: a maze of more than 20 streets, all named after bullfighters, more than 1000 red-and-white-and-green-striped tents, and a mess of people wearing brightly colored dresses. Add in all of those pesky horse carriages that clog the streets until 8pm, and there’s simply just one place to meet: under the main gate. There’s a whole lot of public casetas clumped nearby (PSOE, Garbanzo Negro, San Gonzalo), so this is a good place to begin your afternoon if you’re waiting to meet friends.

Me gusta el mosto en noviembre, y mirar al cielo azul

Feria is about as propio to Seville as the Taste of Chicago might be to my native Chicago. It’s a whole big gathering of people admiring beautiful Andalusian women, Jerezano stallions and drinking local wine. One of my favorite sevillanas is Los Amigos de Gines’s Yo Soy del Sur, I’m from the south, which pays homage to all of the best things about Andalucía – the bullfights, the crops, the never-ending blue sky, the pilgrimages. I get chills listening to its slow compás, these are my customs, and I never want to lose them. Ojalá…

Se enamoró mi caballo de una yegua de Castilla

If I could bring two people to vivir la Feria, I’d have my dad chugging beers with Kike by night and my mom riding in Leonor’s horse carriage by day. From the early morning hours until the last call of 8pm, the streets jingle with cascabeles as hundreds of horse carriages parade around the Real. It’s not cheap – the little licence plate needed for circulating on the streets costs 86€ an hour!! I love living the feria by day to admire the stately Andalusian stallions which carry manzanilla-wielding men and gorgeous gitanas on their backs, and am lucky enough to have friends who bring carriages! Now if only I’d spot the Duquesa de Alba!

Me gustan los toros serios y los toreros con arte

Apart from the horses, the toros de lidia bravely stare down toreros six times a day during the week’s corridas. Nothing says Feria like a stroll around the fair in the morning, mantilla firmly on your head, with an afternoon at the Maestranza. From this point in the year, the Sunday afternoon bullfights officially start. While I’ve been just once to a bullfight in Seville, we do get to enjoy a mini session at my school: the preschoolers dress up as the toros and bullfighters, and we all chant, ¡Torero, torero! as the jury decides to award the valiant baby bullfighters with an oreja or two. Arte, pero arte.

Me metí en una caseta que estaba llena de pijos, todo el mundo en traje y hablando de su cortijo

As I’ve talked about the casetas before, it’s important to note that they’re private and guarded by door guys. I once invited my friend Lindsay to Susana’s, and she told the portero that she was friends with the guiri inside. He shook his head and said, no foreigners here! Most of the tents are owned by businesses, political organizations, the armed forces and big groups of friends, but there’s no denying it – most of the people who own the tents are rich enough to pay for them. It’s not cheap – Kike and I pay 75€ for the year, but we’re just two of the hundreds of socios . Whenever I am invited to a new caseta, I like to take in the ambience of the people who are talking about their horses, wearing nice suits, and have obviously come from money. I’ve been to some of the bigger and nicer tents in Feria, but prefer the less pretentious ones (and this hilarious sevillana – I went in to a tent full of preppy people, everyone wearing a suit and talking about their horse farm).

Mírala cara a cara, que es la primera

Once night falls and all of the socios have had dinner, the flamenquito bands arrive for live music and two lines of dancers form to dance sevillanas. This four-part dance is like a coqueteous encounter between two lovers: each step, they seem to get closer and more sensual. You can dance with up to four people, either boy-girl or girl-girl (but who care if you dance boy-boy!) and the music doesn’t stop until 5am. My favorite memories have been dancing – with friends, with socios, with my partner, with my students – and each year I feel more confident in my dancing. In Los Sanotes, I’m often invited to dance, and I swear it’s the least American I feel during the entire year.

Esa gita, esa gitana, se conquista bailando por sevillanas

When Susana first took me to try on my very first flamenco dress, I knew not to expect anything else but a lot of drinking and feeling very awkward in my tight dress. I was a hot gitana mess, but each year I feel just a bit more flamenca and love that the Novio has some amazing moves when it comes to dancing sevillanas (even if I have to drag him onto the dancefloor!).

Pasa la vida, pasa la vida y no has notado que no has vivido

Before you know it, the tents are coming down and the fairground is vacant. Seven days pass by in a blur of sherry and polka dots, but some of my most treasured times in Seville have been had at the fairgrounds. The famous sevillana Pasa la Vida by Albahaca talks about how life moves by so quickly and often we forget to live it, but the opposite happens to me during Feria. I can sleep four hours a night and stand dancing for 14. I feel sexier shaking my culo in my dress. I feel confident in calling everyone I know and finding them somewhere in the Real to have a drink.

When it’s all over and life goes back to normal, some little spark inside me seems to kind of flicker out, like my Amigos de Gines sing in my absolute favorite, Algo se muere en el alma. I’ve got to wait 51 excruciating long week to pin the flower back atop my head and my espartos to my feet. Something, indeed, does die in your soul.

Ever been to the Feria de Sevilla? Any good stories to share? Celebrity sightings?

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Filed Under: A Few of My Favorite Things, andalú, Andalucia, culture shock, dance, Feria, flamenco, guiri atope, holidays, la vida loca, Seville, Spain, toros, travel photography, Triana, typical Spanish · Tagged: , , ,
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