¡La Feria de Madrid!

Día de San Isidro

Take a second to imagine every decent-sized city in the United States claiming their own "festival day," solely for celebrating the town and simply having a good time. Seems pretty nice, doesn't it?

Well, in Spain it's actually a thing. Jealous?

Spaniards are so serious about their "ferias" that one of the actual oral exam questions I practice with the students is, "What festival is celebrated in your hometown? Describe it."

Small murmurs of the ferias start up in the spring, and then all of the sudden before you know it, people are dressing up and traveling to different towns to party with the people. Every feria has a distinct personality based off of its city. Sevilla is known as having one of the best ferias, but also one of the most exclusive. You have "know people" in order to get into the best restaraunts and bars. Granada is known as the crazy feria with cheap drinks. Valencia sets things on fire...if you're interested to hear more about this, google "Fallas."

To be completely honest, Madrid's feria, San Isidro, is an exciting feria with picnics full of delicious lemonade and donuts called roscias, but my friends and I opted to take a little trip to the beaches of Mallorca for that weekend. We were reluctant at first to miss out on our city's feria, but more than a few Spaniards assured us that while it was a good time, there really wasn't much to see besides the costumes and picnics in the park.

I may have missed out on the picnics, but because of my school´s celebration of San Isidro, I got a full hands-on experience with the costumes...When a teacher asked if I wanted an extra costume for the school´s San Isidro day, of course I jumped at the opportunity--although, she left out the part about how the left-over costume was a man´s costume. But hey, who am I to turn down tradition? I have to say, I sported that cap and vest pretty well.

4th grade in their costumes! Aren't they cute?

The beautiful teachers and man on the right...