El Rocío, una locura verdadera

"Oh what a world, we live in...why am I always in a plane or a fast train? Oh what a world my parents gave me..."-Rufus Wainwright

I had an incredible weekend at El Rocío. It was really nice seeing everybody dressed up in sevillana dresses and the men with their "Cordobes" hats. Donna, Roberto and I left on Saturday evening and prepared ourselves for a night of dancing, drinking and eating...





There were soooo many different "hermandades" (brotherhoods of all the different villages) parading throughout El Rocío, showing off their oxen/horses carrying tributes to the Virgin Rocío. Unbelievable. There were also firecrackers/rockets going off every few minutes, with people shouting: "Viva la blanca paloma, viva la virgen Rocío..."

El Rocío can be a maze, and we walked through the deep sand for what seemed like hours, trying to find Roberto's "Hermandad". Somehow, we didn't seem to care though. It was great walking around and seeing everybody so happy and in a festive mood. There were people dancing and singing in every house.

We were offered drinks at every house we went to. It was great. It was a good thing that we ate an ENORMOUS dinner (best pork everrrrrr) because I might have been writhing/spazzing on the floor after all the "copas" we had that night.

We didn't sleep at all that night. At around 3 a.m., perhaps from being slightly delusional or from wanting to master the art of the sevillana dance, I announced,"Let's just not sleep." It seemed like a wonderful idea. I danced like an imbecile around the other great sevillana dancers, trying to imitate them but ultimately looking like a fool. Yikes. Even Donna was doing it better.

At 7 a.m., the night was still going strong. Taking our copas with us towards a little park, we walked around for a little while, taking in the sunrise and breathing in the cool, crisp morning air. I felt like I was walking in a dream. It was all so surreal. Then Donna decided to go cuckoo on us (lack of sleep? too many copas? I'm still amazed at how well I behaved myself...somehow) and announced to the world all the promises that she would keep in her lifetime. It was awesome. Comical girl. She made me promise some things too, and I did say some things which I will never forget. The only thing Roberto would promise was to finish his copa and to push her into a river if she didn't shut up.

Priceless. I've even got a video of Donna sitting in the middle of the road, yelling gibberish to Roberto and me yelling something back along the lines, "I love you, Donna!" Then Roberto asks her to marry him, lol. Then he tells her to shut the hell up and to make promises to the virgin Rocío and not to him.

Now, at 11 a.m., after going for more than 24 hours without sleep, you can imagine my condition. Roberto had an unbelievably painful idea which wouldn't have been so bad on a normal day, but given our lack of sleep, was quite torturous: "Let's attend Mass!!!" This being El Rocío, the mass should have lasted 2 hours. I only succeeded in staying awake for about 20 minutes. For shame.

The mass was held outside in the hot sun, to make matters worse. We were all given free fans, and I somehow managed to fall asleep, sitting down, with the fan over my face to shield my shamefull lack of devotion. I just couldn't stay awake. My eyes were made out of lead.

Roberto finally woke me up, and we decided that it would be best to just take the bus back. Unfortunately, we had to wait for the bus, and rested in the park for a wee bit. A man took a picture of me sleeping, apparently. I'm sure my mouth was wide open and everyone could see my tooth fillings.

So there you have it. It was really fun. I'm glad I went :) People were all very welcoming and friendly. It was worth it.

This weekend we are (hopefully) going to Lisbon. Angel has been sick these past few days, so we'll see if we do go in the end. I really hope so, but won't be too disappointed if we go another weekend in June. Oh man, there really isn't that much time left. June will be very busy and will go by in a flash. The kids' shows are coming up...thank goodness I've finished most of their masks. I'll try to take some pictures of that as well..we'll see if I post them on my blog.

Ok lovelies, miss you all

xoxoxoxo H