I am home

Despues de muchisimo tiempo estoy a mi casa segura y contenta. Pierdo muchos de mis amigos en Sevilla pero es solamente para poco tiempo hasta ellos va a mi casa en USA o regreso a Espana.

A mi Indaro pienso sobre nuestro tiempo junto todo el tiempo. Estas en mi corazon para siempre hay un foto que es en mi mente y mas cuando hablo contigo. Es desde Asturias y es un foto que revela 100 palabras pero ninuguna expersa que era en mi corazon a este tiempo y ahora. Estoy esperando a su visita a mi. Su Alana

Mario eres un amigo verdad. Antes de mi viaje y despues siempre expresas amistad y ayuda a mi. Gracias para todo y en la verdad va a mi pueblo un dia estara esperando para ti. Hay muchos bromas entre nosotros y solamente nosotros- nuestras sonrisas siempre estaban grande juntos. Su Laurena

A los otros personas lo siento no he tenido mucho tiempo con uds. espero que un dia podemos pasar mas tiempo juntos "tomando algo".

Hasta pronto,
Lauren

Romería

May 8th 2007- Romería en Calañas.
Semana Santa is when all of the cities have their religious parades carrying the virgens on the backs of costeleros. While that is a worthwhile event to see I really believe the heart and soul of this tradition is found in the small villages where the tourists don’t normally go (and unless you have an in to these festivals you will miss out on this amazing experience. Their parades are called Romerías!

Iwas given the opportunity to go to the pueblo Calañas where the people ride donkeys and horses in the streets daily, there are three bars that everybody hangs out in allowing for the spread of information, because of course everybody knows everything about everyone else and when there´s a stranger in the town everybody wants to know about them. (I relate this to Manila, Utah but with a difference of 3,000 people instead of 100). During Romería everyone returns to the village to celebrate and now I understand why- I had a blast. I stayed with a family that was amazingly helpful and welcoming.
They cooked paella and were very accommodating. They even borrowed me one of their flamenco dresses with all the accessories so I could get the true Romería experience. I loved it!
Honestly the first time I saw these dresses I thought WOW they are really feminine and girls wear them because they are attractive. This belief changed when I put the dress on and now I have a whole new theory (a more emic view if you choose).
Flamenco dresses are very tight fitting as you can see in the pictures here of me and a little tough to get into but it is worth the work because they are a blast to walk in! You know when you are a little kid and you twirl when you have a dress on just to see it span out well it kind of the same thing with a flamenco dress but you don´t need to spin instead just walking has the same effect.
The only complaint I really have is you have to wear heels- we all know how I am with heels, and last, but definitely not least, you can´t lift your legs very high because they are pretty skin tight on your waist and upper thighs, which made getting into the carros a huge task (the reason all the girls that enter the carros in these dresses have help from a guy- it’s necessary!)

This picture(right) is of my friend Pedro’s mom. She helped me get ready with the dress, which as I mentioned before is quite a task to get into.

The picture (below) is of Pedro who also helped me get ready by helping put pins in my hair to keep the flowers up- his first time it was really funny.
Now for this celebration the village that I was with makes two treks. The first was performed weeks ago to get the virgin from its home church and bring it to their cathedral to stay with them for three weeks. The second trek, the one that I went on, was to return the virgin to that other church where she spends the majority of the year. On this trek some men carry the virgen on their backs while the rest (yes I do mean the rest of the village) follows behind (as you may have seen in the first few pictures). There are three ways villagers follow the virgen by walking (and it is hot so this manner is grueling especially for those in heels for their flamenco dresses and with the hot sun- everyone who did this was burned by the end of the trek), riding a horse or burro, and last but definitely the most fun in a carro.
carro is a flatbed trailer covered like a sheep wagon and inside, on all four sides, are benches with a huge table in the middle where the food and drinks are placed for everyone in the wagon to enjoy. These carros are pulled by a tractor and are a blast because groups of friends share these (like getting a limousine for prom) and spend the whole time eating, drinking alcohol, singing sevillanas together. In our carro Pedro played the guitar and everybody sang and clapped. It was really fun!
The food typical for Romería is jamon, queso, pan, and shrimp. The drink is rebujito which is manzanilla with sprite. I got my first cup of this from a lady and her kids who were walking around handing it out. I thought it was lemonade at first. I like this drink because it is really sweet and you can barely taste the alcohol- which could turn into a bad thing too.

Everyone is really friendly- I met a ton of people! And everyone offers food and/or some type of alcohol. By the end of the night everyone is pretty much drunk and the last stop after the imagen is back at her home church everyone is singing, dancing sevillanas (a type of flamenco) and out to talk to everyone. There really isn´t any violence just a lot of happy people.