¡FIESTA! minus 1

Last Saturday we went to the peña* to cut back the grass which had grown during the last year and sweep out the table area where we eat. Others were doing some much more serious work of replacing part of the floor which no longer existed.

*A "peña" is the name given to a group or gang of people who meet to socialise. It is also the name of the place where they meet. Our meeting place for the main fiesta is a disused dwelling which looks about to fall down which is in the original medieval village. It is on 2 levels and the access from the road is to the top level which consists of one largish room with walls on 3 sides with a lot of armchairs and sofas mostly reclaimed from the rubbish tip or "El Corte Ingles" as the locals refer to it. Below, accessed via the "garden" from the "lounge", is the eating area. We each pay €60 to the peña fund for the period of the fiesta to cover the food and drink consumed.



This morning at 9:00 am, 12 of us set off in our cars to go to Sabeco, the supermarket in Alcañiz, to do the shopping for the meals held in / for the peña over the next few days. We ended up with several shopping trolleys full of drink and food and the bill came to over €900.




In the evening 26 of us had the first meal which was sepia - cuttlefish, one of my favourites - with black rice, the "ink" from squid makes it black. It was very filling! This was followed by cheese with membrillo (quince jelly)

The name of our peña is "catacroc" which is taken from a type of drinking activity where a generous vodka and tonic is poured into a glass, you cover the top of the glass with your palm, slam the glass hard onto the table, it doesn't break but makes the tonic fizz, then swallow it in one gulp. Needless to say, the meal ended with several rounds of catacrocs!

We left the throng just after 1:00 am - this is quite early as over the course of the next few days activities such as eating and dancing go on into the very early hours. On the shopping list yesterday were several packs of bacon and a few dozen eggs - this is for the time when breakfast is the next meal having spent the night enjoying the fiesta. Last year it felt like having travelled to a different time zone in the world - I'm sure it will be the same this year but at least we are more prepared in that we have a good idea of what to expect....