For all of the pageantry of the bullfights, they pale relative to the color, glory, and scope of the Feria de Abril in Sevilla. As early as March, girls in Maya’s class were asking her if she was going to the Feria and if she had a dress. I like the idea of anyone asking Maya about a dress, as it implies that they actually think she might A. Have a dress and B. Care about anything to do with dresses. However, this is the ultimate dress event, evidenced by the fact that it even got Maya to wear and care about a dress. Please don’t tell her I said she cared about a dress...because she will deny it and then punch me in the arm. We knew the Feria de Abril was a big deal in Sevilla, but we honestly did not understand what it really was or how it worked or how one participated. Even after reading and asking questions, we couldn’t grasp much beyond the image of a state fair midway, mixed with Flamenco dresses, horse carriages and a fair amount of drinking something call rebujito...how do those things fit together? I think I got the same answer from three different Spanish men when I asked them for a description of the Feria: “You drink rebujito all day and watch women in Flamenco dress, and all women look beautiful in Flamenco dresses.” This didn’t serve as a clear description of the festival, but each man made the statement with a dreamy look in his eyes. While I admit to being intrigued by their awe, the answer didn’t really give us any idea of how to attend the Feria. So, we decided we would prepare as best we could and then wing it...which might describe most of our travel experiences. That meant Beth and Maya would get the dresses and the big roses for the hair so they could dress the part...whatever that part ended up being. I even decided to buy a linen sports jacket in a lame attempt to keep up. I did have a conversation later with a Sevillano who said that the man’s role, both in his clothing and on the dance floor, was to just be “okay;” he made it clear that you want your wife to look better than you...a goal I seem to master everyday
The Feria always starts two weeks after Easter...ensuring that nothing gets done for most of April in Sevilla; there is really just enough time to rest up between the two events. This year, with a late Easter, the Feria started at midnight on Saturday, April 29, so that at least one full day of the Feria would be in “Abril.” Normally the Feria would begin at midnight on Sunday night. While it might seem bizarre to start the Feria at midnight...when everyone should be asleep...that really isn’t a problem in Sevilla as the whole city stays up for the start of the Feria. Maya and I slept through the midnight opening, but Beth, Weston, and Amy walked across the bridge to see the lights turned on to officially open the Feria. Apparently, people were streaming across the bridge well past midnight to begin the week-long party. Beth only stayed for an hour, but Weston and Amy stayed into the early morning, riding rides and watching the scene. Maya and I did not fully miss out on the people watching as we went for a morning run...at 9:00am on Sunday...and saw a steady flow of people returning home from the night’s festivities...maybe stumbling would be a more appropriate term than flowing. We actually ran to the Feria grounds, which is essentially a series of streets, maybe the equivalent of six city blocks by ten city blocks, that are lined with casetas, party tents that accommodate between 60 and 300 people. Each caseta consists of two rooms: a dining room with a dance floor, and a “bodega” with a bar and a kitchen. Each also has its own bathrooms. For the rest of the year, the Feria grounds are just an empty area with streets and bare concrete slabs. During the Feria it become an entire town of fully functional individual parties. At the west end of the Feria grounds is a full midway with rides, games, and food vendors. It is very familiar if you have ever attended a state fair; however, it is the village of casetas that is the heart of the Feria.
After our run and after we sent Weston and Amy...a little hungover...to the airport on Sunday, we headed out to the “Concurso de los Enganches,” which is the competition/display of vintage horse carts in the bullring. The display of horse carts opens the first day of the Feria because horse carts are the primary form of transportation in the Feria grounds...a tradition that has remained since the first Feria in the nineteenth century. To get an idea of the ubiquity of horse carts during Feria, consider this: throughout the year there are 98 licences for tourist horse carts in the city, and we saw carts throughout the day, every day. During the Feria, there are 1400...YES...1400 horse carts in the city, and almost all of them are carefully restored vintage carts. The jump from 98 to 1400 is pretty noticeable, and many of the Feria carts have teams of four or five horses, rather than just a single horse. As soon as we headed out to the bullring, we saw that the Feria is not confined to the Feria grounds. At 11:00am on Sunday morning, women and girls were already out in the streets in their Feria dresses - bright orange, red, polka dots, aquamarine - with hair pulled tightly back and with a large (fake) rose high on the head. We were immediately delighted by the scene, and we quickly came up to the line of horse carts waiting to enter the bullring. Maya was beside herself when we came up to the mini horse cart with a team of four beautiful white ponies driven by a ten year-old boy in a tux and top hat. Each cart featured beautifully cared for horses, drivers and footmen (yes, real footmen) dressed to the nines, and passengers in full Feria/Flamenco dress. The whole thing was glorious. We found our seats and watched as ten carts would come into the ring and process around...We were not convinced that having 30-40 horses pulling carts in the bullring at once was a safe idea, but it was totally spectacular to watch. Each team of horses was decorated with tassels and bells. I found it pretty hard to imagine where all of these carts come from...how can there be so many meticulously restore horse carts anywhere...no less in one city? The display served as another vivid example of the Sevillanos’ love of their history and culture; they continue to live and embrace their heritage.
Inspired by our first visions of the Feria, we decided that we should head over to the Feria grounds to get a sense the full scope of the fiesta. Like I mentioned earlier, we didn’t really know “how to do” the Feria, so we decided that a recon mission was in order. So, we got dressed up...yes, Maya and Beth in Feria dresses with roses in their hair, and we rented a horse cart to take us to the Feria grounds...it seemed like the only way to do it. The ride over to the Feria grounds - about a mile and half from our apartment- was amazing and bizarre - a real life mixture of past and present driving through the streets. As soon as we got within a half mile of the Feria grounds, we were in heavy traffic, which included cabs, cars, buses full of women in fancy dresses, horse carts of all kinds, people on horseback, and sidewalks packed with pedestrians ...all on city streets in the middle of town. Wherever we turned, we saw something strangely wonderful...a team of four fancy mules pulling a cart with nine women in bright dresses, a line of five Spanish cowboys splitting lanes on horseback, a bus packed with people dressed gloriously. Once in the Feria grounds, car traffic is prohibited, leaving only horses and pedestrians, highlighting the sense of moving back in time. We asked our driver to tour the streets, which ended up mostly meaning getting stuck in a traffic jam of horse carts. However, simply sitting in our horse cart was pretty delightful. I tried to take photos of the Feria scene: the horse carts, the dresses, the casetas, the cowboys, but the immense scope of the scene is nearly impossible to capture; one Flamenco dress is pretty impressive in its unabashed color and ruffle, but thousands upon thousands is almost beyond imagination. Each caseta is full of revellers, with people spilling out onto the walkways in front of the casetas. The streets are full of horse carts, and the carts are full of even more people...AND there are a bunch of people on horseback, simply sitting on their horses, drinking sherry from small sherry glasses that they tie on to their saddles when they are riding. The constant in the scene is the dresses. The men I talked to were right on. Everywhere you look, there are beautiful women in glorious dresses, sprouting roses from their head.
The problem with the Feria for a tourist is that outside of spending an hour or two taking in the vibrant scene, the event is pretty hard to attend if you do not know someone who has a caseta. There are a few public casetas, but most all of them...over a thousand...are owned by companies or by groups of individuals. The casetas end up functioning like a sort of social club, with a group of 20-30 friends who share the costs and responsibilities. Each caseta hires caterers to run the kitchen and bar, and they hire security to work the entrance. Most casetas still charge for food, but the prices are reasonable, and each member has a tab. The result is that each caseta is a hosted party for close friends and family...wearing sweet dresses. The remarkable part is that the party goes on for eight days; the casetas are full from early afternoon until three or four in the morning, with live music and lots of dancing...even Maya!
We were fortunate to be invited to Juan’s caseta and to Elena’s caseta. Elena, the teacher at Maya’s school who coordinated the school exchange, invited us to spend the evening at the Feria with her family. We were thrilled, but also a little stressed by the opportunity. After finding the caseta, we had to negotiate the security at the entrance and then make it through the busy caseta to find Elena and her husband. The caseta was full of people of all ages talking, eating, and dancing. We were soon sharing a plate of Jamon and drinking rebujito, which is a mix of half manzanilla and half sprite. The idea is that you want a drink that is refreshing, cold, and not too alcoholic, given that you will be drinking it for hours….which we discovered is exactly what happens. Elena explained that Feria is the time she sees her friends….basically all of her friends are in the same place at the same time. Sevillanos who have moved to other cities, like Madrid, often come back for all or part of Feria. Elena sees many friends in her caseta, but she will also visit other friends in theirs. Her 18 year-old daughter does the same, hosting friends, visiting other casetas, and going to the midway to ride the rides. Where I had originally seen the Feria as a massive prom for everyone, I now saw it more like 1000 versions of family reunion meets fraternity formal...maybe. The night before we met Elena, she had stayed at the Feria until 3:00am. Her husband described the transformation of their living room during the Feria: with Elena and two daughters, the room transforms into a storeroom for dresses, roses, earrings, and shawls...he can’t even find the TV to watch the evening news. Elena will wear a new dress and shawl everyday of the Feria, adding different earrings, etc. Her daughters do the same. In fact, most kids don’t go to school for the entire week. There are school holidays on Thursday and Friday, but most parents don’t seem to expect their kids to go to school on Monday through Wednesday. At Maya’s school, a third of the kids were absent on Tuesday, and most of the kids who showed up on Wednesday only came because it was Maya’s last day at school.
In a conversation with Elena’s husband, who is an architect who works on restoring churches -- yes, very cool job -- we discussed how unique the whole scene was. I commented that nothing in Barcelona even comes close, and he responded that Sevilla is much more Muslim in its culture, while the north of Spain is much more Catholic. The comment first struck me as bizarre coming on the heels of the very Catholic Semana Santa celebration, but then I recognized that his comment was cultural rather than religious. Again, I enjoyed the notion of a town and its citizens so thoroughly embracing and celebrating their cultural heritage. I also enjoyed how thoroughly most Americans would misunderstand the sentiment given the contemporary political climate. Looking at pictures of historical Ferias, one sees that very little has changed. The streets are full of horse carts, the women wear fabulous dresses, and everyone is drinking some form of sherry. Delightfully, there is almost no technology at the Feria: no screens, no real corporate presence -- just people, food and drink, dresses, and lots and lots of socializing and dancing. We enjoyed having the opportunity to hop from Elena’s caseta to Juan’s caseta. We still didn’t really feel like locals, but it was nice to see from the inside. Rocio’s mom, the Abuela, even got Maya on the dance floor to dance the Sevillana. Maya understood that grand arm movements and a big smile are the key, and she looked spectacular on the dance floor. We have been trying to figure out how to recreate the scene in Menlo Park, but I don’t think we can do much more than dress up and eat and drink on the porch all day...which I do recognize is an awful lot like our normal life...but with fancy dresses. So I guess we will be having a porch party with fancy dresses soon.
