Fiesta!
Walking around the city the last few days I’ve seen various preparations going on. Bars are suddenly sprouting extra outdoor bars, plazas are getting stages built in them, the park has a new children’s play area. All of this is for San Mateo, Oviedo’s big annual fiesta. It runs from the 12th through to the 21st and, despite my students rubbishing the lineup, I’m quite looking forward to it. Every day there’s kids stuff in the park, there’s theatre, there are concerts, both free and not free. I read in the paper that the council is being very serious this year about the noise pollution, and that the live music will have to finish by 2:30am on weeknights and by 5:30am at the weekends.
Among the artists playing the free gigs by the cathedral are Tomatito, Estrella Morente and Amaparanoia (all of whom I’d pay to see). On the 19th it’s the Day of the Americas in Asturias and the flags are being hung right now. There’s going to be a big parade. One of my students said that I should try the bocadillos (sandwiches, but made with crusty bread) especially the calamares. She was chuffed to learn the alliterative squid sandwich translation.
The photo is from the opening speech/fireworks/Asturian anthem/holding up of a chicken in which the dean of the university gave a speech which basically went like this:- Oviedo, it’s great, we love it, aren’t we lucky to live in such a great city, I mean it’s bloomin fantastic, and when we do this again next year let’s hope that Real Oviedo are in the second division (that would be an upwards move, and that got the biggest round of applause), viva Oviedo, viva San Mateo.
The holding up of the chicken made the front page of today’s paper, I have yet to read it to figure out just what that was all about.
Tags: fiesta, oviedo, san mateo
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