We’ve sold our car

Fab timing as I really thought we were going to be stuck with it after the summer. It went much smoother than expected as well – when buying our other car it involved multiple trips to Barcelona (the seller paid someone to do the donkey work thankfully), and several days of driving the car without the correct papers. We’d envisaged having to spend 2-300 euros just to sell it but it turns out that it cost us nothing!

We hadn’t realised, but one of the reasons it cost the seller of our new car so much to sell was because he hadn’t paid his road tax, which he had to pay in one go in order to sell it. As we’d been paying by direct debit it was all done, all I had to do was find the bit of paper proving it was paid up, hop on my bike and whiz down to the office. All done and dusted within a couple of hours. Result.

I guess I’ll be on my bike more often again now, not something that I’m unhappy about….

It’s the fiesta season, first the Fiesta Major de Vilanova and after that the fiesta specifically for the Geltru (the old town).

Last night there was a CorreFoc which translates to a ‘fire run’, which is a pretty apt description. It involved various groups, accompanied by their own band of drummers, dressed as devils and carrying large amounts of fireworks and sometimes the odd dragon also laden down with fireworks. These are set off throughout the town, amongst the onlookers. Those who want to get close to the action wear long sleeves, trousers, shoes, hats and masks. Get in their way at your peril if you’re in sandals, shorts and t-shirts!

Mum and Ray are here and they really enjoyed it, which was good. The nice thing about the fiestas is that it is not a tourist thing, it’s enjoyed by the locals, for the locals, so you feel quite a part of it as opposed to watching some show put on for your benefit.

There are giants at some point and there’s music and other things going on, I forget exactly when. Monday there are the Castellers which are human towers – they will climb on top of each others shoulders to make a tower 3 or 4 storeys high, which is quite a spectacle, followed by fireworks on the beach at 11pm.

The kids are still off school.

This afternoon they all went to the central plaza, dressed up again (we forgot, honest). They have a stage, with music, people jumping around and men on raised platforms throwing confetti everywhere. It’s a bit of a non-event really.

Esmé gets confettied

Still not sure of the spelling, but think Compasa is correct.

I’ve tried to do a little research into this and there is surprisingly little information. I think the Compasa is a dance, either way in Vilanova the Compasa revolves around different groups go their various ways around town playing music and dancing.

Each group has a flag bearer. In addition to the main flag the flagpole is adorned with ribbons – one for each year that the group has joined in the carnival.

After that, it seems pretty much anything goes. Different bands will play different music, some will have singers with microphones, others won’t. The dancing to can be quite ‘formal’ in the sense that they’ve obviously practiced something, while others look a little shambolic. This may well be due to the fact that they start at 9am and it turns into a bit of a pub crawl – they’re dancing their way around town from 9am pretty much all day long and clearly need refreshment. By midday there are quite a lot of stragglers who’ve lost their group.

The other thing to mention is that the men carry enormous bags of sweets with them, which they throw to the onlookers. They throw so many sweets that they literally cover the entire floor, and as a consequence your shoes. Last year we had to throw all our shoes away after the event (the sticky sweets harden like concrete quick as you’d like) so this year we’d saved up shoes specially for the event.

The whole thing comes to a conclusion in the main square with a sweet fight: they put in two groups for an alloted time. The women come armed with shawls, which they use as shields to protect the sweet throwing men. The air is thick with sweets. I’m not sure who, if anyone, wins.

On the day, the weather was mixed, we managed to miss a couple of quite heavy bouts of rain, but nothing to dampen the spirits of the carnival really.

Some pics – I took higher quality shots than previously and it’s not giving me the option to display thumbnails:

women dancing

flag bearer holds his audience

flag bearer holds his audience II

kids collect sweets

On the Saturday afternoon everyone goes out in fancy dress. As with much of the carnival there’s nothing specific happening, more of a common thronging in the streets.

I’m not really much one for fancy dress, but the kids like it and if we want to be part of the community we have to join in on these things, right?

Somehow the day didn’t go right. We started by going to Mick and Niki’s garage sale as they’re leaving for Oz. We stayed there much too late, missed out lunch somehow and arrived home at 5pm when we had intended to be going out. Gabe had gone with Jonas and had to be picked up. Olivia meanwhile raided the dressing up box and kitted herself out as a fairly decent pirate. Jo, Gabe & myself found ourselves left with the scraps: a headscarf for me, Jo and Esmé, Gabe had an indian waistcoat on inside out, and a pirate sword each. To give it that little something special Olivia gave Jo and I a painted-on scar and eye patch. Gabe wisely declined.

We live in a quiet street a few blocks from the main plaza, so there wasn’t really anyone around when we left the house. We started to really wonder about the wisdom of the Olivia-inspired face painting as the streets filled out the people all decked out in very professional costumes. We had one or two looks of ‘shock/horror/what they hell have they come as?’ which were quite amusing.

On hindsight, we looked a shambles – next year we either do it and do it properly or forget the idea entirely. I’ve been taking a few photos of events, but somehow missed this opportunity, not sure why that would be..

We’ve been struggling with the Catalan/carnival concept. The school gave us a piece of paper with Catalan poetry which tells us what the kids do each day and what they need to take etc. Yesterday was the slipper fiasco. Today they were making xato (a traditional dish) so we sent in the ingredients necessary; it was only at the bus stop that we realised they also needed to be dressed as chefs. All these kids with professional chefs hats and aprons wandering about, amazing. Our poor kids, they didn’t seem fazed at all.

This afternoon school finished early in preparation for the meringue throwing. Not so much the hard meringues but more the uncooked, wet variety. I ventured in with the kids and managed not to get ‘too’ sticky, although we still all had to strip off to pants and socks in the garage on our return.

They had a hot air balloon and a couple of suspended platforms from which they were throwing bags of meringues into the crowd. They then started parachuting them in and there was a scramble to get them as they landed. Me being 6 foot 4 I had a head start and managed to grab one but it took a few attempts and wasn’t that easy, I nearly had to trample a little girl to get through

I took a few pics – the last one was on the way home, some of the parents had made a tamer version for the younger kids in one of the squares near where live.

It’s Carnival time again.

The kids have to go to school each day this week with different weird and wonderful things.Today we understood that they had to go to school with something ‘different’ on their feet so we sent them in their slippers. It turns out that it was more specific: either odd socks or odd shoes, i.e. a trainer on one foot and a shoe on the other. One of Gabe’s friends said that we hadn’t read the note to which (so he says) he replied that we had, that we’re English and that we’re learning/trying!

Jonah (a friend in a different school) has to go to school tomorrow dressed as a girl, so let’s hope they’ve got that right!

Luckily we sent them with their shoes in their bag as well

They have half days at school on Thursday and Friday, and Monday and Tuesday off completely. Luckily Jo’s at home this year to help out (i.e. step and and take the kids).

I forget all the different things going on but here’s the things that stand out from last year:

- Saturday afternoon fancy dress

- Sunday the Compasa (not sure of the spelling)

The whole town turns out for the fancy dress, adults and children alike.

The Compasa is when different groups within Vilanova parade round the town with a band and a group of dancers. The dancers throw sweets to onlookers to the point where the streets are completely covered with sweets. Last year we had to throw all our shoes away after the event – no exaggeration – they were just covered in sticky goo.

There’s loads of people, the streets are thronging and it’s a great atmosphere. I’ll try and give a bit more info/pics as it happens

it’s an annual event, I’m not sure of exactly when it falls but if memory serves me right it was on a Thursday last year (as it was this year), so perhaps it’s the third Thursday in January?

I knew it as donkey day but it is in fact the fiesta de sant antoni , who is the patron saint of horses.

It’s quite a big event, they bus in horses from all over Catalunya, from teeny shetlands to those massive plough pulling horses (I forget their name) and horse ‘trains’ pulling tree trunks etc. There are horses with riders, horses and traps, horses pulling all manner of things and all of them decked out in different traditional costumes etc.

They all do three big loops of the town, with lots of bystanders cheering them on. They obviously put a lot into it, all the shops and schools etc are shut and there are a lot of people on the streets to watch. It was the same last year – exactly the same.

The fiestas are – by their nature – very traditional and get very ‘samey’ after a while. The Spanish don’t seem to mind, they love it and come out in their droves to watch every time. We don’t really have the equivalent in the UK and I suspect that most brits would see an event one year and think ‘seen that, done that’ the next (my very reaction!).

It’s worth noting that there were LOTS of horses here from all over, which would point to the fact that Vilanova celebrates the fiesta de sant antoni more than other areas – there’s not enough horses to go around. If there’s an excuse for a fiesta, you can be sure they’ll be celebrating it here. Nice, there are some that I love, but it gets pretty disruptive. If I had a choice donkey day would be one I’d miss out (yeh yeh, bah humbug).

I’ve got a few pics/vids but won’t bother putting them up unless specifically requested.