Olé Olé Olé

So the Feria has past, a grand event for Sevilla. It goes on for 1 week, starting on Monday night for the alumbrado which is at midnight when the 1000s of lights of the puerta, the big entrance are lit (turned on we have electricity now!) and then all the lights in the streets. It continues till the following Sunday, all day and all night, only dead from about 6am till 11am. During the day the streets are filled with horses that look like the ones at “El Caballo Blanco” (any sydneysiders who lived through the 80s can´t forget that) and glamorous men riding them, dressed up in Córdobes costume sometimes carrying woman in flamenco dresses riding side saddled on the back. Inside the casetas, there is live Sevillanas bands, (the only music to be played at feria!) lots of drinking, eating and dancing the typical sevillanas that goes with the music. Literally the whole city gets into it. The streets are dead. ALL of the shops and offices close from lunchtime and most workplaces give you 1 or 2 days of to go there all day. That’s if they are open at all, lots of places just shut down for the whole week. And most women dress up in flamenco dresses. The beautiful colours of the dresses through the Feria are amazing. I chose red for mine, it was too overwhelming to chose a colour so I decided on a classic style & colour. But walking through the feria I just couldn´t stop looking at all the dresses. “Oooh I like PURPLE!”….”Oooooh Look at that orange & green one!!”” “look at that girls comb/frills/sleeves /” etc etc. It was endless! Now I fully understand why most girls from here have more than one flamenco dress!

So…..I present to you…..Kristy in her brand new, very own, made by Marcos´s Mum, Flamenco Dress!!!!!!!!

Marcos took about 1 million photos of me including one on the toilet (“Oooh look how cute you are on the toilet in your dress”) which is not going to see the light of day. It feels great to wear cause it fits me like a glove and the frills swish when I walk. And swish overtime when I dance & spin! Love a good swish.



In these photos I am posing in the courtyard of my new place, it has lots of plants which is nice.

I got into a bit of dancing this year again, there are particular steps to follow but if you are dancing with someone who knows what they are doing, and they warn you when to spin you can pretty much wing it. Each Sevillanas song has 4 parts, each of which has a different little routine to do. People that join in half way never know which part your up to and I must´ve fooled one little girl (no more than 8) who asked ME where we were at in the dance. HELLO didn´t you see me spinning the wrong way before. I´m LOST! I can barely tell the differece between the 4 parts only that in the 4th part there is a hell of a lot of spinning and isn´t recommended after a 2 jugs of rebujito (sherry). However, the end of each part (4 parts to each song) is very dramatic, you spin, throw your hand into the air and yell ole (ok maybe I am the only one that yells ole) and it finishes on a particular beat, one which I ALWAYS manage to miss, probably due to my tone deafness, I end up yelling Ole 10 seconds after everyone else. The spanish love to see a foreigner giving sevillanas a go and I was being passed around from one fancy footed spanish guy to the next.

Well it was great fun and the rebujito (sherry) hangovers were well worth it. I´ll be pondering around the house in my dress methinks, definately can´t wait till next year to wear it!!

xxxx