Fiesta de la Paloma

Silly me! The street fair where I ate my dinner was only the tip of the iceberg. There is a five day festival going on in the city called the Fiesta de la Paloma (dove). After updating my blog I head out to find the Calle de la Latina which I have been warned is difficult to find. But not so on a party night--I can hear the massive crowd and the pumping music from blocks and blocks away. Tonight isn't even the big night but the streets are so packed with people that I can hardly make my way through. I decided not to go to the party alone, but rather with some of the friends I've made from Calle de Cådiz and I'm glad because the scene is almost overwhelming and I'm happy to have the guys looking out for me.

I don't have my camera with and it's a good thing too. Even though I would have liked to take photos of the massive street party that stretches for miles (literally, miles!) I'm not sure my camera would have survived the night. While trying to dodge a million lit cigarettes that constantly threaten to burn me, my clothes, and my hair, I manage to accidentally come upon a solution for my flammability: a drunk girl pours her entire beer on me. There's nothing I can do, and it's a fiesta. The boys approve and I'm advised that since we've only been at the fiesta for five minutes and I've already had a beer dumped on me, you know it must be a good party!

Let me try to pain the scene: Basically every bar throughout this giant section of the city stays open late and sets up speakers and a barfront on the street. You can buy insane amounts of alcohol and dance to whatever music you like. If one place isn't playing what you want to hear, just cram through the crowd until you get to the next bar which is blasting totally different music. People bring their own alcohol, mixing drinks out of backpacks and plastic bags stashed in doorways. The crowd is a total grab-bag--there are older party-goers who must have grandchildren somewhere (asleep, I hope) and people from all over the world. The hippies are grooving with the hipsters, the working crowd with the transients, everyone just having a great time. If you took every single party you've ever been to--frat parties, wine tasting, birthday parties, any celebration with any crowd--and dump them into the street, multiply the people until you're in the high thousands, add all kinds of music and endless alcohol and make everyone drunk and happy and bouncing up and down and yelling and laughing... you're getting close. It's incredible.

I probably walk over five miles throughout the night. We do the entire stretch of the fiesta, stopping occasionally to dance and get drinks when the music is right. Near the street with all the food we find enough space to dance to the latin beat music blasting from some packed bar and the boys take turns twirling and dipping me and suddenly there's a whole bunch of couples salsa dancing with us in the little clearing. And some of them are really good! We bow out as our small impromptu dance floor is taken over by other dancers.

There are so many options for food beyond what I saw earlier when I ate dinner. There are all sorts of tapas choices and little smorgasbords of pickled vegetables, different stuffed olives, stuffed pickles, and other salty looking items that I've never seen before. I announce that I'm going to the churro wagon and am rewarded with teasing about how many churros I already ate. I'm not interested in churros this time around, I want a relleno con crema. It's basically a giant churro with custard in the middle. Delicious!

The party will rage until about six in the morning. Tomorrow is the big night and promises to have more people, more drinks, more music, and more merriment. Tonight is just warm up. We bail before the party is over, at about 3:45 and I notice some other people walking back--a few women with their young children, toddlers and infants, in buggies, sound asleep. I'm amazed at little things like this that point out huge cultural differences.

I get back to my room and I smell like beer and cigarettes, and I'm so tired from having too much fun, but part of me could stay up and dance some more. I'm certain that we'll be going back tomorrow!