Student Bloggers
I’m Famous in Granada?! (Not Clickbait)
Date
February 12, 2018
El Día de San Cecilio, patrón de Granada
Corrina, Bethany, and I heard about a really cool celebration of the patron saint of Granada from our Spanish friends and decided to see what it was all about. We made the one hour hike up the extremely hilly neighborhood called Sacromonte all the way up to the abbey. On our way, we passed numerous flamenco caves, many of which are incredibly famous within Spain. The farther up we got, the more beautiful the view was. Granada truly is a breathtaking city.
Once we reached the location of the festival, we were greeted with traditional salted olive oil bread called salaíllas, fish called bacalao, and HUGE raw green beans for free. What a steal. The bread and beans were delish, but I just could not get down with the insanely salty, chewy dried fish. We had quite a bit of fun playing with/eating our food while waiting on the flamenco performances to begin, and once they started, the really started. We saw everything from adult, possibly professional groups to little girls around the age of 4 strutting their stuff. The music, expert guitar (and instruments I’m not sure I’ve ever heard), the beautiful clothing, and incredible dancing all added up to make a wonderful morning and enlightening experience.
Before leaving, we visited the abbey, where Saint Cecil’s remains are housed. The abbey only opens once a year for this festival, and we were lucky enough to go inside and take in its serene, ornate yet simple beauty. I’m not going to lie, I was a bit confused at first because it is marked almost everywhere by the seal of Solomon which, to me, looked exactly like the star of David. Further research was required for this, but it led to learning more about the two religions which are incredibly prevalent in this city.
To put the cherry on top of the salty sundae, we were put in the news! Corrina’s teacher stopped her class to fangirl and tell her that she’d seen her in the news in photos of the event! We are all pictured on ideal.es stuffing our faces (gracefully, I might add) and chatting it up in the grass. Long story short, my publicist will now be writing these blogs.