One and a half weeks ago Ribadavia celebrated the "Festas Portal". It has been the last summer event and this means autumn is coming. BUT although people said that Galicia and the north of Spain, is a cold and humid place, I am still enjoying a hot long and wonderful summer! Not even at night the temperature drops under the 10°C mark and the midday sun still has the strength to heat up the air to 30°C. 

Do you see the smoke on the horizon? Yes. That's fire. In summer it is normal here to have bush fires from time to time. They are not as devastating as in the south of Spain, but still, they exist.

Let's get back to the "Festas Portal". Every village, town and city here has their own celebration which is closely connected to the saints. In Ribadavia we had a little fair with games for children, fireworks (the Spanish seem to really love them), some street theatre, music, a carpet of flowers and the traditional procession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

At the same weekend also my birthday took place. I had a little something for dinner the night before with some friends and the weekend after Sabrina and I cooked some delicious homemade food for some other friends who couldn't come the weekend before. 
It is a little strange to celebrate my birthday here and invite people. By now I indeed know a lot of people in Ribadavia but nearly nobody good enough to invite to a "birthday party". So Sabrina and I thought we might just keep it a little less "official" and invite them nevertheless. We spend two amusing nights :)
I also received much more letters and pakets from Germany as I expected and I got very excited about it! (So I'll abuse this blog now to send some thank you kisses home!!!) 
Here is an interesting thing about the local post in a small town. Most of the pakets have been sent to my address in the "tower". However, I am not at home in the morning and for some reason the postmen know that and also know that I work here in the Youth House and so they brought all my mail to the office! How great is that?

And to give you some summer feeling: a few pictures of a day in August we spent in Prexigueiro, a village not too far from here with a wonderful river and awesome hot therms we surely will visit a lot in winter. 

I always wanted to do that! Swinging with a rope into a lake I mean. And the rope did NOT snap! It's great fun!

On saturday I will meet up with my dad in Oviedo and we'll spend a week hiking in the Picos de Europa. After that I'm going to visit some friends I met during my preparation seminar in their little village. Vacation! Yeah! 
And when I come back in October Sabrina and I are going to restart the workshops and classes here in OMIX. See you then!

"Estoy vivo! Estoy vivo!" He hops out of the orange supermarket trolley he had been surfing and runs across the campsite. Grabbing a selfmade poster from a cardboard box which shows slightly obscene offers at low prices he repeatedly screams "I'm alive! I'm alive!" and jumps up and down like an overly excited boy. Then he raises the old piece of cardboard over his head and walks on as if nothing happened using the poster as a sun hat.

It's the day after. 

The day after the big medieval festival here in Ribadavia. I went to town around noon to check out the damages of the last night. The streets have already been cleaned, the market stands removed and on the campsite people where packing their belongings to leave. 
It has been a vibrant festival. People from all over Galicia filled the streets and made Ribadavia appear to be a different town. Over 40.000 visitors according to the newspapers.
It began on Friday with the market, food, some acts, a concert and a pyrotecnic show illuminating the old castle. 

Saturday then most of the visitors came. You could watch were the birds of prey, a tournament, archery, competitions, reenactments...more shows, more music and more food.

We helped out in the bank Saturday morning. They created a special currency for the festival and people needed to change their Euros to "Maravedis".
While the Maravedis coins remain the same, the notes are printed with a new design every year. With this new currency money for the implementation of the festival is gained if I understood it correctly. The entry is free of charge.

I made my costume out of stuff we had in the flat and clothes of my own. It was a very hot day and I was happy that I did't wear an armour like some others did!

For you to understand what I mean by "Ribadavia seemed to be a different town":

I enjoyed the weekend a lot! Since I did not get as drunk as many others I only needed the Sunday to recover. It's a shame that the festival only lasts one (okay, one and a half) days. I think, with all the effort they put in organising this they could easily expand it until Sunday. Although it would probably be a day for the kids...all the other visitors would still be dead from Saturday night ;)