La Castañada, Not Halloween

Hola guapos!

This past weekend I went to a town about an hour north of where I live to visit a friend. Her name is Erika, and she is also doing the same program as I am, only she is teaching at a school in Girona.

Girona

I met Erika at our orientation day in Barcelona, and strangely enough, it was almost like we were drawn to each other....it was probably because we had similar California accents. She's from Valencia, CA; 24 years old; went to San Diego State; and we get along really well.

So anyway, I visited her two weeks ago also, and I fell in love with her city. It's a lot bigger than my town, which isn't saying much, seeing as my town only has a population of about 12,000 people. The city is divided by a river, and on one side is the Medieval part of town and on the other side is the more modern part of the city. Its beautiful, and kinda reminds me of Florence, Italy, but I'm not going to lie, I also like going there because they have a Zara, H&M, and Sephora.

I've met her friends from the city too, and they're all "muy buena onda"...very chill people (more or less, translated to English). They are mostly all guys, so thus far, neither of us has had much luck in making spanish girl friends, not that either of us minds much...hmmm.

Getting to the point, however, this weekend is known for the festival called "La Castañada" (castaña = chestnut). Chestnuts are in season now, and when they are ripe, they fall from the trees and people collect them, or if you're lazy, you buy them at the grocery store. Then people roast them in the street, and sell them, of course. I have a feeling most people have neither seen a chestnut, nor tasted one, so here you go:


If I could feed you one, I would, but the technology isn't that advanced here yet.




So after they fall out of the trees and and are roasted, they look like this:

















I bought the roasted ones on the right from some of my students who were selling them in the town square to raise money for the school. They wrap them in newspaper to keep them warm, and they cost 2 euros for about 12. If you look closely, you can see the words on the newspaper...that's Catalan.

Some of my friends at the school had told me that Girona has a very big celebration for the holiday, one that lasts 10 days. Usually, La Castañada is only celebrated on Friday the 31st and on November 1st. In Girona, they started the party the friday before the 31st; they're my kind of people.

To celebrate, they have a parade that goes through town on the weekends, there are concerts in the park, there are carnival rides and games, and there are a whole bunch of stands that line all of the narrow beautiful streets of the old part of town. You can find anything from scarves, to cheese, to paintings, to jewelry. I loved it!

Here are some pictures of what the streets looked like:

The picture on the right is of big vats of olives. Stuffed olives, olives in vinegar, olives with coctail pickles, olives with-you name it, they had it. Lillie, this is what part of your heaven will consist of.

The cutest candy stand ever!

Here, chicharrónes- Mexico Spanish- (fried pork skins) are called Llardons- Catalan.

Every variety of tea you can think of!

This was taken on one of the bridges over the river. Doesn't it look like Florence?

We took this picture on the same bridge. (L-R, Erika, Hanna-Erika's roommate-, and me)

One of the two famous cathedrals in Girona.

I heart cobblestones.


I would like to present to you, images of the smallest plaza in the world:

View from the middle.

Blurry, from the side.

One corner of the plaza...kinda creepy, and very appropriate for Halloween.

Carnival ride, trees, tree tops

I hope you all had a great Halloween weekend!!