Recently in Traditions Category
This weekend Berry, Manon & Bas visited us in Lleida, and we really enjoyed it. The visit coincided with the autumn festivities in Lleida, so there was plenty to do. However, most of the weekend we spend chatting and playing at home. Other highlights include the castellers on Sunday, who were building such an impressive human castles that they needed extra people to form the base. They picked Berry and me, resulting in the castle pictured below, a '3 de 9 amb folre'. You should be able to see our heads in the mass below...
I was very surprised when I received the magazine promoting the biggest cultural event in Lleida with a huge photo of me on the cover.
In case you are interested: we are preparing the clasical Caracols a la llauna. The snails are prepared on a big plate and for the best results they will have to be placed upside-down. My job is to throw salt to prevent the snails from turning around.
Since my parents are here to celebrate chrismas with us, we took them to a living nativity scene in Sudanell on the 25th of December. Each year they show some on the television, but I never actually visited one, so it was interesting for me as well. After buying the entrance tickets, I browsed through the leaflet, and found out that it was not exactly what I expected. I had imagined a place where the main figures would walk around with some animals, but in reality it was a lot more. There were 60 scenes in total with over 250 figures. Furthermore, the figures did not walk around, but stood still as statues. Each scene had been elaborated to the smallest details; everything looked right. From the clothes to the tools they used! It took us an hour to see all scenes and reach the nativity scene. Besides biblical scenes from the christmas story, there were many scenes showing the life in that era: how to make baskets and soap, the work on the field, etc. We were very impressed. It was a pity that we were not allowed to make photo's ---the flash would disturb the figures---, but my parents bought a video tape showing all scenes. It is difficult to explain it to others, but we really felt like we were walking around in another era. Next year we surely try to visit another living nativity scene.
One of the nicest traditions in Catalonia is the 'correfoc' --- corre = run and foc = fire.
The Catalans love any excuse to have a correfoc, a riotous fiesta of sparklers, firecrackers, and roman candles, where colles de diables, or brigades of devils and dragons, dance threateningly to the strains of an accompanying percussion band as they weave through a startled and delighted public. In order to save your clothes, there is only one remedy: jump so the sparks roll off. We filmed a correfoc at October 8 in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, so you can see a little bit how it is:
Video file: Correfoc.mpg (5,93 Mb)
The night of San Joan, two o'clock in the morning. We are sitting side by side on a balcony on the fifth floor of a house in Balafia. The view is stunning; we can oversee the whole city with the Seu Vella high above it. There are fireworks and bonfires everywhere, and I count 5 empty bottles of Cava. The radio plays "The house of the rising sun", so there is no need to say anything...
Ik haat het om geblinddoekt te worden. Al met al een geslaagd vrijgezellenfeest.
Vrij naar John
Just a small message to give you the possibility to congratulate me. ;-)
Christmas is already finished, but I still would like to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
Even though we live far away from my family, we were able to spend Christmas with both families. On Christmas Eve we had a wonderful traditional Catalan family supper over here, and the day after we jumped in the airplane to celebrate a Dutch Christmas (I am not going to compare the two ways of celebrating; they do not differ that much and I like them both).
Anyway, as usual my time in Holland was way too short. I would have liked to spend more time with my family and friends and maybe visited some nice places together, but that will have to wait for my next visit. We have planned to go again with Easter, but maybe I will book another flight earlier.
