Life is either a daring adventure or nothing: Nit de Foc

Hola people!

Last night was the famous Sant Joan festival! It was such a blast, but needless to say I am tired! Good thing we had the day off today! For those that are unfamiliar with what the festival is all about, here is the short explanation I wrote for this week's cultural agenda that is sent out to our students:

All dolled up for Nit de Foc or Night of Fire

We headed down to the beach area around 9:30pm so that we would be able to find a spot. By this point it was starting to get dark, but still bright out. We set up camp and cracked a couple of beers. The beach was already filling up fast and there was music playing from all of the tiny beach bars.

Got to hang out with an old friend from last time!

I was surprised to find that the fireworks were not professional, but just normal people lighting them up right in front of us. During the day, people set up little firework stands on street corners. The kids next to us spent the night lighting up different Roman candles and such with their father. It was giving me such anxiety to watch so many little children run around with explosives and fire! At one point, the father had a baby on his left hip while bending over to light a firework! Not to mention we were right next to these people, so we were on guard all night.

SAE ladies

This was nothing out of the ordinary for Sant Joan however. People were doing this up and down the beach. As we approached midnight, the beach began to fill up. There were drum circles and a few bonfires. Every couple of minutes a huge professional firework would go off.

At midnight, we put our swim suits on and ran into the water. Supposedly, you're supposed to go swimming to cleanse yourself of your sins. The water was so refreshing! By this time, many people on the beach were not sober so there were a lot of skinny-dippers out there.

We hung around until about 2:30am laughing, drinking and enjoying each other's company on the beach. It was like one gigantic party! We met a lot of cool people and had some interesting conversations with people from around the world. Overall, it was quite the experience and so much fun!!