Fogueres Day and Night

Oh how good it felt to sleep in after falling asleep reading my book, The Girl Who Played with Fire.  After 11 chapters, it is starting to really pick up and now I don’t want to put it down…obviously because I fell asleep in my bed with it next to me J  My alarm went off at 9am and I had been dozing back and forth for a few hours.  I don’t know if it was the alarm or wave of heat suffocating me that woke me up.  9am and I am already sweltering IN THE SHADE! It’s gonna be a hot one.  Good thing I just plan to hang out and relax today.

Once I got up, I got dressed with my bathing suit underneath so that I can hop right over to the beach J and ate breakfast (peach activia with pistachios…no I’m saving my chocolate for dessert)  I worked on editing my speech a little and then relaxed with my book until noon when I headed downtown to the art gallery to grab myself a poster of the Fogueres 2012 (the festival we have been having all week), but the place was closed so I will have to check back tomorrow and Tuesday to see if they are open and hopefully I can grab one J  I caught a few pictures of some Fogueres they have created which are all awesome and I guess all have some political meaning and then Kat and I grabbed lunch at café 26 with their menu de dia (I had first course of tomatoes with cheese and a pesto sauce, second course of risotto and mushrooms, and dessert was a cold café con leche drink which was to die for…all for 8.80 euros) we also left the tip in all coins that added up to euros because we wanted to get rid of all of our 1, 2, 5, and 10 cents we had accumulated hahaha J

The streets were humming with activity as the first official day of Fogueres and parades were going on with bands and people dressed in various costumes form older days and firecrackers that go off in the street that at first made me jump and now I am so used to them that I don’t even look twice.  People were milling around everywhere snapping shots and seeing the Fogueres figures that surround the streets around the Ramblas.  After lunch, I caught a mini fiesta before heading out to the beach and letting my stomach settle from all the food that I ate a lunch I feel like a fatty hahaha J

I went to the flower festival where the different parts of Alicante come together and wore traditional dresses and carry flowers.  The dresses are slightly above the ground and in two pieces.  The top is a jacket that has long sleeves and is usually black but can be in various colors.  The bottom part puffs out with either I’m guessing a hoop or hip booster so that is falls in a circle around them.  Around the front of the skirt is a apron of some sort that is usually made like a doily and can be white, black, or sparkles.  The more sparkles usually the more elaborate the dress.  The bottom of the skirts are decked out in flowers and various patterns that show the flashiness and superiority of the person’s status.  Then, they wear head pieces with their hair pulled into a tight bun and braided in the back around the bun.  The head pieces are just like a veil in the back that extends past the middle of the back or in upper class standards has like a horn halo that surrounds their face.  They also wear a lot of jewelry like earings that are long and large and a necklace that is usually a cross and gold or silver. 

After my fill of the festival, I came back home took a shower and got dressed for a night on the town.  We met up with some friends that we had met in Barcelona and Granada and hit the Barrio along with thousands of other people.  We skipped from place to place grabbing drinks and taking in the people around us.  We ended up heading toward the beach later in the night where we just hung out and chatted.  The beach was the most crowded with a million or so people cover the half of the beach around the pier area.  At 430 in the morning the next day J we decided to call it a night and go home to clean up and fall fast asleep until the later afternoon…I guess my days are mixing in now J…it was astonishing to know that us Americans were boring because this city was up until around 7 or 8 in the morning.  Whoever said New York or LA are the cities that never sleep are crazy because they need to come to Spain during this festival.  It is insane with fireworks going off at midnight, people out till all hours of the night, people sleeping in until after the siesta, the streets are buzzing with millions of people, the Ramblas (main streets) are full of parades during the morning and evenings, bands walk around all of Alicante playing various instruments, and sculptures cover several areas.  A few of them I have seen but there are a total of 50 and all going to be burned on Sunday, so it is a crazy weekend but I cannot imagine not enjoying it.  Good thing my homework is done so I can sit back and enjoy and blend in by staying up late and sleeping in J

  

Since it is already morning, I can feel the breeze of the beach blowing through my hair and it makes me feel so comforting.  The night has been memorable and it is just end of the beginning J…it’ll be super windy again tomorrow or should I say today…

ps --> how we spend our time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFmprE8_nBc&feature=fvst