Wednesday was class per usual. Started watching Los girasoles ciegos in Cinema class, which is another depressing movie about a Republican family living in post-civil war Spain. After the movie me and Samantha went shopping for some souvenirs for a bit. I headed home, did some homework, and then Mery and I had an early supper. Wednesday was the beginning of the Festival of San Juan (technically the festival started at midnight so it was really June 24th) to honor St. John the Baptist. Since the saint in question was indeed a baptist, the festival is celebrated on the beach near the water. Everyone gets together on the beach (and I mean EVERYONE), builds little bonfires, and sits around them drinking, talking, dancing, and waiting for midnight. When I got there, our friends had surprisingly already had a fire going. Turns out they met these guys from Madrid who were in town, befriended them, and got them to build a fire for us. They were cool guys, friends from college, and we sat around and joked with them for a while. They got up to go watch the concert at the big stage down by the beach after a while though, leaving us with a nice little fire. Still, we were running out of wood fast and midnight was a while off so me and Lauren got up to try and find some wood for sale. Walking down the boardwalk we found absolutely no wood, but plenty of vendors selling char-grilled ears of corn covered in butter and salt for 2euro. We bought 2 obviously. On our way back, we snagged a big cardboard box from the trash along with some old book and some loose bark from the palm trees. This sustained the fire for a little while until we sent some other people out to go beg other people for wood.
At midnight, the tradition is that everyone rushes into the water and jumps over 7 waves. Literally everyone does this, and it is really something to see. I didn't go too far in since I wasn't wearing a bathing suit, but some people went all out. I did my seven little waves, made my wish (should be obvious what I wished for), and then walked around the shoreline for a bit... the moon was almost full so the water and beach looked incredible. We headed back to our fire, which soon turned into a giant pit of billowing smoke and embers. Me, Chris, Josh, and Samantha went to walk around the beach to find some people to chat with. We ended up talking with this group of guys from Spain for a while. The one guy's name was Bambino (a nickname from the time he had studied in Italy), and they were talking to us for a while about random stuff. I got the name of Bambino's favorite Spanish musician: El Barrio, a flamenco singer. I've checked out some of his music and it is actually pretty legit. We hung out with them for a while, and then headed back to our people. We left around 2 in a cab. Honestly, this was one of the coolest experiences of the entire trip... it's a shame American Festivals are nothing like this one.
Thursday: everyone was super tired from the night before and still smelled like bonfire smoke, despite showering in the morning. Watching a movie in art class (about prostitutes and a nun, of course), and finished watching Los girasoles ciegos in Cinema... very good movie, ultra sad, and unfortunately accurately depicted the post-war reality. After the movie, my group gave our final presentation about the Republican Party during the Spanish Civil War. This is not Republican in the American sense: during this time, the Republic in Spain were the leftests: intellectuals who wanted freedom, equality of women, and progressive thinking in the government. Unfortunately, they lost the war due to the aid Franco and the nacionalistas received from Hitler and Mussolini, and were forced to leave Spain or were hunted down and murdered if they chose to stay. Absolutely horrific. My part of the presentation talked about some famous intellectuals from the time period like Luis Bunuel, Antionio Machado, and Pablo Picasso. Nailed the presentation, too. After class we all pretty much went home to study for exams. I honestly didn't feel like I had a lot of studying to do, so I packed my suitcase and whatnot. I forgot to mention that Mery made me a bocadillo Thursday: my favorite with the tuna salad. And because she is the most amazing person ever, she also made my favorite dish (the chicken with celery cream sauce) for dinner that night. I asked her for the recipe and she wrote it down, explaining every detail. I miss that lady so much.
Thursday night= finish packing, look over notes, sleep. Pictures are from San Juan, although they don't do justice to how many people were there and how much fun everyone was having.
Hasta.
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