Feria! People! Happiness!

The next day I woke up around 11ish and went to the gym. I talked to Román, turns out he wasn´t at Feria the night before, but he´d be there the rest of the week getting drunk. Oh Román. After the gym, before going home, I decided that I desperately needed some better Feria attire. I really wanted a fancy fan that all of the women carry, so I stopped in a bunch of stores around my house to no avail. Finally I stopped in a shop on Luján really close to my house called ¡Mira Qué Mono! (Look How Cute!) and found a poofy, ruffled, rose-printed brown skirt that looked like a flamenco skirt variation. It was on sale for 22€ so I bought it. I had to! I needed some flamenco gear for Feria. I then came home to shower and such. Stacey had left early to go pick up her boyfriend, Ryan, at the airport whose plane was scheduled to come in around 11:45. Before lunch María del Mar started getting dressed and primped for Feria. This was to be her first day at Feria and she was going to spend all day and most of the night there eating, drinking, and dancing with her friends in their casetas. She put on her bright green dress with little white polka dots, put her hair back, Maruja pinned a big brown rose to her hair while I helped pin up her dress. She also wore the traditional shawl, and hers was brown to match the rose. The color combination was very interesting, unique, and awesome. Once she was dressed and gorgeous we went out to the porch and took pictures. That´s right, folks, I have pictures of María del Mar. Get pumped for those. Then Maruja and I ate lunch which was very unique: first we had penne pasta with tuna and tomato sauce, then we had ribs. Ribs! I haven´t had ribs in ages, and it´s the last thing that I´d expect to eat here. They aren´t your typical ribs, these were spare ribs, sauceless, cooked in olive oil. They were surprisingly good but very hard to eat. I felt like a ravenous animal eating its prey. It took me awhile to eat, so I held Maruja up. Oh well. For dessert we had pears. After lunch I saw that I had received a text from Melissa asking if I wanted to meet up at Feria, so I called her and we said that we´d meet up around 4:30. Then Jessica called me with the same question and I told her the plan. I then messed around online, a little too long because it took me longer to get dressed than I thought because I was late meeting them...a half an hour late. I wore my new brown skirt, my copper mary janes, a green tank top, my brownish reddish necklace, and put my hair back with the red rose. Fun! I met up with them and we walked through the Puerta Principal for our first day at Feria. It was so hot out, kind of uncomfortable. However, it was so visually amazing at Feria that it didn´t matter. Seeing all of the flamenco dresses is simply astounding. So many cuts, colors, patterns...everyone goes all out and gets creative. I would have loved this if I lived in Sevilla. There were mothers and daughters wearing matching outfits, baby girls wearing huge ruffly skirts that overtake their strollers, boys dressed in suspenders, cumberbuns, and hats, old women decked out in flamenco dresses, etc. I have pictures. Needless to say, Feria was quite the sight. There were also countless horses roaming around decorated in many colorful bells with the drunk dressed up men on top, street performers, etc. Every caseta was so full of life: people dancing, people drinking, people eating, people chatting. There were people dancing, eating, drinking, and chatting in the street. It was spectacular. This really felt like Spain. This was the cultural heartbeat of Sevilla. This is why I came here. At tutoría the past Friday Jorge had invited us to his family´s fishing club´s caseta which he would be guarding during the day. So of course we decided to make that our first destination. It took us a bit of time, but we finally found it. There was Jorge, standing guard, looking very sexy in his portero uniform. Yum. We talked to him for a bit and then he invited us in. Yay for private casetas! He introduced us to his friend Sergio, an old buddy visiting from Mallorca. He took us in and we went straight to the bar where he bought us all a jarra de rebujito (pitcher of rebujito). Our first rebujito! Each person drinks from a small plastic cup that´s basically the size of a Dixie cup. That´s dangerous because you consequently end up drinking more than you think. I really liked the rebujito--it´s really refreshing in such hot weather. Oh man, it felt good to be inside of a caseta and out of the sun. And our feet (especially Jessica´s) were hurting. Sergio was a really cool guy, really nice, genuine. It was great to practice my Spanish and hopefully get an in (he´s staying with Jorge for the week, haha). No, Sergio was a good guy and a good person to have as a Feria friend. I told him that I really wanted to learn the bailes sevillanos and he told me that there were 4 different ones and he kind of new one. So he taught me the first baile sevillano which is pretty simple, although he was unsure as to whether or not he was teaching it fully since he´s not from Sevilla. It was great, though, I was dancing, drinking, and chatting like a real Sevillana during Feria! We talked for awhile until Stacey called all of us. She was at Feria with Ryan and couldn´t find us. Plus her phone was doing what my old phone used to do: lowering the voice volume. So she couldn´t hear what we were saying. So we gave her the best directions we could and then went outside and waited with Sergio and Jorge. Finally they showed up, and I got to meet the infamous Ryan! He´s a big guy, about 6´4" and built like a football player. I gave him a big bear hug because I was so excited to finally meet him. They came bearing alcohol which made us all smile. We all stood outside of the caseta drinking and chatting. We met two more of Jorge´s friends whose names have escaped me--one was from Barcelona and the other from Sevilla. They bought a jarra de manzanilla (rebujito minus Sprite) and we all toasted and drank and had a great time. Jorge´s girlfriend showed up which was kind of a shame. But I got to scope her out. Mwa ha ha. She´s kind of cute, she´s short and very skinny. I found out that she´s a dance teacher (jazz and flamenco), and she definitely looks like a dancer. She´s actually a really, really sweet woman and I liked her a lot. We all hung out a little while longer until we decided to relocate and check out some more of Feria. I got Sergio´s number so that all of us (including Jorge and his gf) could meet up that night. Sweet! After leaving we ended up not making it very far...we ended up on one of the corners just drinking, talking, and people watching (which is the best part of Feria). Somehow Jessica got really, really drunk which still baffles me, and she was stumbling all over the place. We were all pretty drunk, actually. It was quite funny. I LOVE FERIA. At around 8 we all went our separate ways and made plans to meet up at Cadillac at 10:30 before hitting up Feria again. I went back home for dinner, cleaned up a bit, rested my feet, and then parked myself in front of the TV. The Sevilla channel was playing what I like to call, "All Feria All the Time" because it was basically like a bar-mitzvah video of Feria. Somebody was just walking around Feria with a video camera and airing it on TV with traditional Feria Sevillano music in the background. My favorite part about Feria is just walking around and seeing the sights, so I really got into this channel while waiting for dinner. Also it was like my own private view of every private caseta. Awesome. I think that I also may have been a bit mesmerized since I was drunk. At 9:30 dinner was served. I can´t remember what we ate. I was way too into the whole Feria thing and excited to see more. After dinner I got ready and headed next store to Cadillac where I met up with Ryan and Stacey. I was still drunk. So were they, but poor, jet-lagged Ryan looked like he was about to pass out. He was a trooper, though, and was determined to stay up and out. We ordered some beers and watched the fútbol game. Soon Melissa showed up and we headed to Feria. We assumed that Jessica would pass out when she got home. And she did. We immediately met up with Courtney and Scott at Feria and began drinking some more. We then went to a public caseta so that some of the girls could pee (when they returned they told us that the toilets were literally holes in the ground!). Stacey, Ryan, Scott, and I hung out at the bar and drank some beers and had a great time. This caseta was pretty nice, very large and had a live band and stage. Soon we headed out. María del Mar told me to call her so we could meet up and hang out in one of the casetas she was in. Everyone else really wanted to meet her because she´s a celebrity to my friends. I´m sure she´s a celebrity to all you readers out there, too. So everyone was disappointed when she didn´t answer any of my calls or text messages. So I called Sergio, he was at a caseta, but I couldn´t understand what he was saying since it was so loud there. So he sent me a text message telling me where to go. Ryan was exhausted and Melissa was tired from being drunk all day (but I, however, was surprisingly awake) so they (and Stacey) all decided to leave. Courtney, Scott, and I headed over to caseta 207 to meet up with Sergio. He got us in and he bought us a jarra de rebujito (Scott and Courtney now got their first taste). We did some dancing, some chatting. I had told Sergio that by that night I´d be an expert at bailes sevillanas, and I had kind of failed. Oh well. I soon took a bathroom break, and in line met some random Italian guys who gave me a pink, wooden rose. Silly. When I returned I bought everyone another jarra de rebujito because it´s custom for each person to take turns buying a jarra. Soon Courtney and Scott left and I was just hanging out with Sergio. Then those 2 friends of Jorge´s from Barcelona and Sevilla showed up and we all hung out. My Spanish was rockin´out hard core! Sergio got a text message from Jorge saying that he was staying in for the night. Sergio said that it was because of his girlfriend and kind of started making fun of him. That´s right, Jorge, lame-o. During Feria you have no excuse for being whipped. Haha. At around 5am I decided to head home. Sergio asked if I wanted him to walk me home. I live about a block and a half from Feria, but I thought that it´d be a good idea just in case at this time (even though the streets are packed until 8am with people drinking). When we exited Feria for some reason I got turned around and couldn´t really recognize where I was. It took me a little while to get my bearings which made me a bit nervous at first. How could I have been lost in my neighborhood? No worries, I figured it out. We got back to my apt. in about 7 minutes. Sergio and I talked a bit more and then said goodnight. He´s a good guy and showed my friends and me a good, authentically Spanish time at Feria. It´s really because of him that we all had so much fun. I really got a first-hand glimpse of it all. I went upstairs and was asleep by 6. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE FERIA!! Literally, one of the best days/nights in Sevilla. I love it here.