Life as I Know It: Estar de Ferías

Let's talk about this.

You, my friends in America, know what America is like. You know what it's like to go to a fair, or to the carnival, or how we celebrate the Fourth of July. You know all about Swiss Days, Watermelon Days, Dairy Days, Lagoon, Magic Mountain, and even the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. You know that we know how to have fun. Let's face it, we simply know how to party like it's 1999 (or 1699 if you're Weird Al, but thank goodness you're not).

Now now now. Let's talk about this. I officially know how to party like a Spaniard. A good, clean, mormon spaniard with a midnight curfew. And a companion who helps me stick to it (she's the best).

The village of Alcalá de Henares has a rich history, filled with famous characters like Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII (get excited, I live there), and Cisneros who founded my university in 1499 (before any of us were born, or our grandparents, or even great grandparents!!!), and the meeting of Queen Isabel and Christopher Columbus. This is, in fact, the place where the brain baby of traveling to America was born, and, as is taught in the Book of Mormon, inspired. What a happy little birthing that was :)

This same little historically rich area, where I have walked for hours and hours at this point (quite possibly due to the fact that my sweet roommate and I have gotten lost for a total of 3+ hours just walking around by now), surely surely knows how to party, you tell me which year you think this is. Oh, and when I asked why the village "Está de Ferías" (which is to have a festival happening), my host mom told us it's just because some saint child did something at some point in time. Translation: because the people like to party. I'm down.

So, during this video it was about 10:00 at night. Not too late, right? Right. However, by the time we were walking home at midnight, there were even more people out on the streets. More than ever. And a lot of them were little doinky niños!!! With their parents, nonetheless, but there they were. If I was up at midnight as a child, I was a grumpy monkey, I can tell you that. But not here. Everyone is used to it here! Such a different time table. Another thing we learned: we met the Elders in the area at church today (not my good friend, but they do know him) and they told us that they can hardly get anybody to come to a 12:00 baptism on a Saturday because it is way too early! I guess when everyone is up until 4, that makes sense though...

As I sit here finishing up my post (in Spain), hanging out in my room (in Spain), with my legs criss cross apple sauce (in Spain), and a day of classes (in Spain) (in a 500 year old university), and exploration (in Spain) and plenty of days of walking (in Spain) and many more delicious (Spanish) meals ahead of me (in Spain), I can't help but revel in the fact that I'm here. I finally made it. And the party rages outside, because, heck, it's only midnight on a Sunday night, and days don't start here (in Spain) until 1:00 in the afternoon.

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

Here are some pictures from the past day or so: