Festival de San Cecilio

Hola, amigos! Time for update number 2. 

Note (number 1): On here, "hola" is underlined as misspelled, yet "amigos" remains uncorrected. Strange.

Note (number 2): In the Arab quarter I bought a very small bag of a tea called Mil y una noche. Directly translated, this means, "a thousand and one night," but in actuality, the name is Arabian Nights. Beautiful! At la tetería (house/shop of happy teas), I asked for a floral variety, and the shop owner most certainly made a good choice. I think the warm, very soothing scent is my favorite part. Yep. Definitely.

Alright, now on to the story. Like most Catholic communities, Granada has a patron saint, San Cecilio. Every year in February, a celebration is held at Sacromonte, from the base of the mountain and upwards, which consists of much flamenco dancing, eating, drinking, and partaking in conversation with friends (basically the ideal day for a Spaniard of Andalucia!). Anyways, despite our program director's advice to take the bus, my friends and I chose to walk, which ended up being more like an almost hike. Not surprisingly, we mixed up the location, so after wandering up and down and all around the Albayzin neighborhood, we arrived at the main plaza that overlooks Granada. Definitely no celebration there. Couples were sitting on the wall, children were running rampant, and gypsies were selling their wares -- basically, nothing had changed since the last time we visited that plaza just two days prior. Of course, it was at that moment that someone in our group remembered the original news article and therefore the correct location. After making a pit stop at a church to climb the bell tower, we set off to the next mountain over, which we could then see was covered in people making the pilgrimage up. Sometimes being observant can come in handy, I suppose.

As soon as we started in the correct direction, we hit streets filled with the locals of Granada, all chatting and already eating fair-style foods. The several tiers surrounding the Sacromonte Abbey were filled with people, who were all mostly either in line for more food or trying to secure a spot to see the dance performances. 

The main tier of the festival, flamenco dancers and all!

People were tucked away everywhere around the mountain, enjoying the music, smells, and good company.

My roommate, Jillian, and I decided to seek out a certain large bread that everyone seemed to be enjoying. While on the hunt, we met two other Americans who were just in Granada for the weekend, as they are studying in Barcelona. Interestingly, even though our new friends, Robert and Sera, had been in Spain almost twice as long as we had, they knew very little Spanish, which they readily admitted. Barcelona is located in the Catalonia region of Spain, where everyone speaks, well, Catalan. True, the people there do know Spanish, but Catalonia is currently seeking independence and considers itself a nation already. Most of the people speak in Catalan, so some students have trouble improving their Spanish skills. 

Side note: in one of my classes, "Society and Politics in Spain," my professor mentioned how the likelihood of Catalonia becoming a country is low. The European Union would deny Catalonia membership, as all countries in the EU must be in agreement to welcome in new states (and Spain would most assuredly vote no). As a non-EU country, Catalonia would suffer from great taxes and other border-related issues. Interesting.

In any event, back at the mount...

With our new friends in tow, we did plenty of people-watching and managed to obtain (and consume, of course) bowls of paella, a traditional local rice dish. Yum! Our friends prattled on and on about the wild and expensive life of Barcelona and how Granada is easily a more friendly place. Score! Eventually we parted ways and all bid the festival goodbye.