La Romeria and My Birthday

This year, I had a birthday that I will never forget. I was pretty lucky this year, because not only did my birthday fall on a Friday, but it also happened to be the same day as the biggest celebration of my town. It's called La Romeria, and lasted Friday-Saturday-Sunday.
 *This post includes lots of little video clips and pictures, YAY!

La Romeria translates in English as a religious pilgrimage. It's a Catholic celebration that consists of a trip (in cars, floats, horseback, or on foot) that ends at a sanctuary or in our case, a church. It is an all day celebration that goes on well into the night.

Here's an interesting fact- the word "Romería" comes from "romero," meaning those traveling towards Rome.

It was fascinating for me to do that research just now to give you all the history and meaning behind the trip, because I've actually lived the experience and I can say it really is like Wikipedia says. I went into the weekend really having no idea what I was doing or what La Romeria even meant, but now all the pieces are falling into place for me :).

What I experienced was arriving to a street filled up and down with the majority of people in floats, some on horseback, and many walking (like me). We walked behind a sculpture/representation of the virgin (hence the Catholic celebration).

Everyone was dressed up in the typical, beautiful, filled with color Flamenco dresses, with big hoop earrings, and big flowers in their hair. The men dressed up in suits and ties for the most part, or horseback gear for the ones that rode on horseback. We started the journey around 2 pm, after a mass took place, and began to walk in the scorching sun.There was a man walking with us playing guitar, and we sang traditional Sevillana songs the whole way. Every fifteen minutes or so, we would stop for a "dance break" and the women would dance the Sevillana. (it's a dance that's broken down into four parts, and it's pretty challenging. In the end I only really succeeded in learning the 1st part, but oh well!)

The first part was about 1 hour 1/2, until we stopped in a very shady area to eat lunch. Which lasted about 3 hours. At that point, I thought we had already arrived. But that was where I celebrated my 17th birthday party with everyone. It was all the little kids from our float with their families, my sisters, and one of my good friends Nerea, and then all of my other friends surprised me by coming over to celebrate! (All the floats and groups of people were spread out at that point for lunch.) Here's a quick video:

Birthday

So there we celebrated, danced and sang (sung?.. I honestly can't remember) a lot of Sevillanas. It was so fun, and a birthday I will definitely never forget.

Dancing Sevillana

My host mom made me this cake...Isn't it adorable?

Our float

Thought these three little boys conversing was cute

Love this little girl's posture in this picture

The float

With Nerea, my friend and Alba, my sister

Ana, Isa, Nerea, and Alba

Olga, Andrea, Isa

This picture explains us

That's me with my Spanish sister ahahaha

And with my youngest sister Fatima

Flamenco dresses

I think this picture is adorable

After all this fun, we actually had 1 hour 1/2 more to walk until we reached our final destination for the night. We arrived at like 8 pm, in a foresty area, and lots of people set up to sleepover for the night. From then on it was just a typical Spanish fiesta :). Lots of eating, drinking, partying, dancing, and singing. We stayed there until late into the night, just being with friends and enjoying ourselves in such a typical tradition here that only comes round once a year. It was definitely a birthday I will never forget.
Besos, Lani.