Feria and Freedom

Feria
Feria, fair in English, is a week long celebration of flamenco-ing and fiesta-ing. It began on Monday, April 19th at midnight and ended on Sunday, April 25th. Because my Italian getaway was cancelled, I was able to make it to 2 days (or nights should I say) of Feria, Friday & Saturday. It was quite the experience. The Spanish love Feria, they live for it. It takes 3 months to build the casetas (tents) and construction is started at the end of January. When it's not Feria time, the Feria lot is vacant, but for that 1 week it's crawling with millions of people. The basic set up of Feria is several aisles of tents. There are public tents, so dirty and hot and packed with gross, creepy people..totally ghetto and there's private tents that are owned by a family or an organization. The private tents are super expensive to maintain and actually have a security guard standing outside them and you have to know someone in order to get in. In both the public and private, there are bathrooms, a bar serving drinks and food, and of course plenty of flamenco action. The flamenco-ing and fiesta-ing goes on until morning...literally, I got home one night at 7:30 AM, and there were people still going strong when I left. In total seriousness, the Monday after the week of Feria is like a holiday called Hungover Monday and people don't have to work. That's crazy! Overall, Feria is just an event for the rich to showcase their wealth and for the poor to hang out in the ghetto public tents. It was a neat and interesting experience for those 2 days, kind of like Semana Santa.. only needed to see it for a little.

Freedom
Kelly and I went to Matalascanas, it's a beach about an hour away from Sevilla, in order to nurse our Feria hangover. We spent the day tanning in 90 degree weather and swimming in the Atlantic, sounds like a great time, hey? So, in Europe, toplessness on the beach is totally legit, no one gives you dirty looks and there aren't even any prolonged stares by men. There were a handful of women taking advantage of the topless opportunity, so I turn to Kelly and suggest we do the same. I may have still been a little drunk from the night before and feeling a little ballsy. So before I knew it we were tanning topless (no tan lines, duh!) Kelly lasted like 3 minutes and I lasted for like 3 hours?! hahaha. So euro. Topless is totally legit...only when you're tanning, though. I look up and spot a mother who was topless playing a ball and paddle game with her son who was 7 years old who was completely naked. The line needs to be drawn somewhere, that was just super bizarre.