Feria de Sevilla

La Portada at night

Keeping with true Spanish form, Feria itself has no commemorative significance.  It is today, and always has been, an excuse to party.  For months, Sevilla's finest workers have been constructing la portada, which is the entrance to the fairgrounds.  On Monday evening, la alumbrada occurs.  This is when the entrance is lit up, and the 7 days of Feria officially begin.

Feria is a magnificent but complicated event, with many elements.  I'll break it down into the main points.



Flamenquitas

Imagine prom, with the labor of shopping, hours spent poring over magazines, and hundreds of dollars spent on all of the "perfects"...The Perfect Dress, The Shoes, The Jewelry, The Hair, The Nails.  Take all those elements.  Multiply that by 7--one for every day of Feria.  Tighten the dress (who needs to sit, anyway?), making everything flashier, and remove the age limits.  Oh, and put a flor on top.  There you have the women of Feria.

Riding Sidesaddle
Los hombres ride around on horses, wearing their typical suits and flat-brimmed hats.  Somehow, these Sevillana women have been born with an innate ability to wear the tightest, most fitted flamenco dress imaginable, and still mange to swing gracefully atop the caballos to ride sidesaddle with their well-dressed men.

Careful in those puddles...

Collectively Hot
Personally, I would like to know where these men of Feria come from.  Also, where they go at the end of the week.  There is something about a nice suit that will make any guy's attractiveness level skyrocket from a 5 to a 9.5 in the amount of time it takes to put on a tie.  Teach him how to dance Sevillana, and we find the masses of Perfect 10s that roam the casetas of Feria.

Maybe NEXT year we'll get the carriage

Horse & Carriage
Families will rent out a driver, carriage, and a team of horses to bring them to the grounds of Feria. With the recession hitting Spain so hard, this mode of travel was less popular this year than in the past. The basic carriage rental starts at 500 euro a day. And that price doesn't even come with the horses decorated like walking Christmas trees. We took the bus. 

Chillin' in a private caseta. We know people.

Caseta
Casetas are what brings all the elements together. It's a family party with all your closest friends; eating catered food and drinking rubijitos, the typical drink of Feria. Well-off families, business, political parties, clubs, etc. rent out their own tent for the week. They are elaborately decorated, and typically include a bar, tables and chairs, and an area for dancing. Los privados have a bouncer at the door, so namedrop if you can. If not, there are also several large public casetas. But there, you have to hang out with the peasants, tourists, and common riffraff. It is much better to just have a connection to a private tent (or a connection to a connection) if you can't drop the dough for your very own.

Feria in the daytime.

Sevillana
I highly recommend you take 39 more seconds out of your day to learn more about the Spanish culture and find another reason to move to Spain.  I posted a link below.  This is the typical dance of Feria, and just about everyone knows it beautifully. For los extranjeros who neglected to take lessons beforehand, you may either clap along to the beat (easier said than done) or make a fool out of yourself on the floor. I chose to do both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krD420Rdwj0

Sevillana dancing

Blanquita

While Monica was told time and time again how Spanish she looked, I usually received an awkward side glance..."What do I say to the blonde?" I just told everyone I'm Swiss. Or I made conversations in Spanish with an Irish accent. At this point, people may be wondering why and how I, a whitey-white girl, was able to participate in such a spectacular show. The story of how, where, and why should be another blog post in itself. But in order to save myself some time and embarrassment, I'll merely thank Ron and Debby Miciak for making it all possible. Two full days of playtime in a flouncy dress made me feel like a Spanish princess, and I had the time of my life.

FERIA: Imagine if high school prom ran away to the deep Spanish south and eloped with the county fair. Their child is taken by Social Services for obvious reasons, then sent away to boarding school to extract all the tackiness, brush away the opposition to Looking Freaking Great, and shake off all the disappointment that comes with hype. Because unlike prom and the county fair, Feria literally can be the best time of your life. No amount of hype over this event can lead to disappointment and heartbreak. This is Sevilla.

Twirling

Oh, and I rode this in a flamenco dress. I've never been happier.