Things Are Different in Spain, Part 1

Last night was the big annual Festival of Unreasonable Volume, which is traditionally celebrated by gathering under the bedroom window of foreigners and screaming yourself hoarse. This is, of course, after the fireworks and drumming without which the festival just wouldn't be the same.

It sometimes feels that people aren't just being noisy from a sense of ebullience or excitement, but from a sense of competition, out of a deep seated need to be louder that the person next to you. This is bad enough in a full cafe, but when the street is full of people all trying to talk louder and louder the noise gets to deafening levels. Last night was, in addition to the Unreasonable Volume party, some sort of medieval fair - we were far too sunburnt and miserable to go and check it out (more on that later), but we did go on Friday night, which was sort of the warm up for Saturday. There were market stalls selling food, clothes and hippy crap - the usual. But everything was set up as a mediveal fair, with people dressed in costume and a medieval tavern set up in one of the squares that was selling pinchos and drinks. We managed to ingratiate ourselves with the sausage cooker by dint of being overly excited about the giant BBQ loaded with chorizos.

This is him humouring us by letting me hold the tongs;




















The man knew how to barbeque a sausage, and it was some of the best chorizo and cheese I've had here so far (and I have eaten a lot of chorizo and cheese in the last couple of weeks);

There was also a little petting zoo, with horses, sheep and goats, and an enclosure full of hunting birds, with a lynx in a cage, which was later let out to run around the crowd to general amusement and uneasiness.

It was a fun night, with great atmosphere. These are some of the most relaxed crowds I've ever seen. It's probably due to the fact that everyone pretty much lives outside anyway, but these are people who are comfortable in a crowd. They are relatively patient about negotiating streets that are jammed full of people, especially when it comes to children and the elderly. They don't get aggressive, and - and this is the bizarre thing for someone from Sydney - you can walk about late at night though the busiest drinking streets like the Calle Estafeta and the Calle San Nicholas safe in the knowledge that you are extremely unlikely to be hassled by groups of drunken guys egging each other on to start a fight. Drinking is very popular here, at any time of day, but being drunk is somewhat frowned on. Again, I think it has to do with the fact that people live to tightly packed together and spend so much time in bars and cafes - the levels of antisocial behaviour in terms of drunken fights and aggression simply can't be tolerated, and people seem to have found a way to limit that kind of behaviour. Pissing in the street still flies here, though. Little tip for when you head out at night; wear covered shoes and watch your step.