Friday night went and met up with Matty (Fellow Leeds Uni Student/Scouser/Evertonian) for a few drinks in Huesca and a bit of tapas. I'll be spending the next year living off Cañas con Limon (Basically ein Radler to any Dortmunders reading - Shandy to us Brits!) Germany (specifically Eastend and Spunk) turned me into a Beer drinker over the last 6 months.. the Limon just makes it taste a bit better! We ended the night in a VERY dirty old mans bar watching Spain beat Lithuania 3-1 - random Spanish thing of the night: the police (probably on duty) stood at the bar having a smoke and a drink (Coffee... not Beer!)Saturday was pretty uneventful, I did mundane things like washing, cleaned my room, and went to the supermarket. Went out later on for a wander and got caught in the most torrential of downpours on the way home.So Sunday we headed off to Zaragoza to see what was going on during the Fiestas del Pilar. Basically every year to celebrate the Fiesta del Pilar there are lots of events going on in the city of Zaragoza around the 12th October every year. Every city in Spain has its own Fiesta usually based around their patron Saint. So in Zaragoza there was parties, concerts, bull fights, all sorts... and the highlight being on the Dia del Pilar... but I will come to that later.
Anyway we got to Zaragoza about 4 and wandered round the whole city. Ate, had a few drinks, and a few more drinks to dodge the rain... ended the night in an irish bar! Because the last bus to Huesca was at 10pm we decided to stick it out til the 1st bus the next morning... 6.30am! So we spent a couple of hours bored in Zaragoza bus station... and got back to Huesca at 7.30!
Monday - SLEEEEEEEEEEP!
Tuesday - Día del Pilar in Zaragoza... best day of my time in Spain so far! We got to Zaragoza around 12 and as we were driving into the city we immediately noticed people wearing traditional looking clothes... everywhere! The teachers at school had told me I had to go to Zaragoza but all I had understood was people walking through the streets and taking flowers to the Virgin Mary. We got off the bus and wandered round until we ended up at Paseo de la Independencia - Zaragoza's main city centre street. Here there were barriers up at the side of the road and people in their traditional dress were being led into the road in groups. We stood at the side for a while and watched and soon realised that people had come along in groups from different areas, towns, churches, all sorts of variety of groups. Whole families were there in their traditional dress and a group at a time they would start walking down the street, with their flowers. The outfits were fantastic, the attention to detail was great! Instead of trying to explain what they looked like there are a few photos above. So they gradually moved further down the road - and as time went on so did we, they moved in the direction of Plaza del Pilar. We stopped again further down towards the Cathedral and spent an hour or so cheering them past, some came through singing or dancing, and I took a mountain of photos.
We then moved from the parade down towards its end - in front of the Cathedral in the Plaza del Pilar. Here the Parade ended in most spectacular fashion. The flowers that the people had carried with them along the way were given to volunteers and put onto the base on which the statue of Our Lady was standing - again impossible to explain so look at the pictures - but it was so impressive! The people continued flowing through on the parade until about 7 in the evening - when it was lit up and the public was allowed closer. In between time we watched a Jota concert - a typical Aragonese Dance/Music - before heading back to Huesca.
All in all a great weekend, Zaragoza was a beautiful city, much bigger than Huesca, and I will definitely be heading back there soon!
Siobhan x
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