s'mores are to pilgrimages ....

... as the United States is to Spain.

Stick with me here... I'm pulling this analogy from some of my more recent experiences here... Give me a minute, and I promise it will make sense.

First of all... Beth and I went with some of my "gym friends" to camp out for a night on the beach in Portugal. Ridiculous. So fun. We were eight total, four boys, four girls. The guys surfed, and we layed out. The beaches in Southern Portugal are absurd as you can see from the pictures... coves surrounded by cliffs.

Our adventure was that we did not take into account that we were on the ocean and, of course, there was a tide that rose. Even after a Portuguese policeman came down to our camp ground to tell us to put out our illegal fire and warned us about high tide... the boys were suuuuuuure it would not reach us... well, reach us it did and we were forced to take down our tents and move our campground in the middle of the night. Hilarious.

But before our fun was impeded by the fun police... Beth and I busted out graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmellows to make s'mores. And not unlike the plump little redhead in The Sandlot explaining the s'more process to Smalls... I enlightened my favorite Spanish friends on the proper preparation of s'mores... and in Spanish I might add. Hilarious. I never knew how complex s'mores were until this night. They made the procedures so complex... "how long do I let this roast?" "I put this on the STICK?" "aaaaahhhhh, it's on fire!!!" Something that is soooo normal for us... incredibly foreign to them. But yes, they did enjoy.

So... moving along. A few days ago marked the beginning of yet another festival (God bless Spain) called El Rocio. If anyone is familiar with the festivals here in Sevilla, I would describe this one as a mixture of Semana Santa (Holy Week) and the Feria (the Fair) as El Rocio blends the flamenco dress of Feria with the religious thumbprint of Semana Santa. Basically El Rocio is a huge pilgrimage where people come from all over and congregate in this tiny pueblo called El Rocio that has no paved roads, but instead dirt ones straight out of our wild, wild west.

A bunch of the professors from my school all elected to do the camino (walk) from Almonte to El Rocio together... so they rented a tractor and basically a flatbed trailor with seats, a table, and coolers full of alcoholic beverages and enough food to feed Africa which we decorated beautfully. Two wonderful professors, Lola and Isabel, took me under their wing and decorated me up flamenco style complete with dress, manta (the shawl thing), and a flower. Hilarious. The real deal.

Basically, we rode down a dirt path with oodles of other people on horses and in carriages, stopping umpteen times in the patches of trees to pull down our table and set up moooooore food. We NEVER stopped eating. Haha. And aaaanytime we were moving, we were singing songs as we had a guitar, multiple tambourines, and castinets with us on the journey. The most fabulous part was seeing our students throughout the day all dressed up either really excited or reeeeeeally embarrased to see us, a bunch of professors, out. Did I mention that I rode side saddle on the back of the horse with one of my students? Photographic proof of that soon to come. We didn't leave til about 2am... I got back to Sevilla at 3am. Classic.

And to come full circle and complete my analogy. Basically... pilgimages/festivals such as this where you dress in flamenco dresses and travel by horse and tractor to a church are as normal to them as eating s'mores are to us... yet s'mores seem as strange and complex to them as this crazy pilgrimage seems to us.
They have been dressing in these clothes and dancing these dances and participating in these festivals since they were teeny-tiny. Amazing. Fascinating. Phenomenal. Wow.

So s'mores, right?