The night of San Juan/Xoan is celebrated June 23rd, which goes to show just how behind I am on my blogging! The night celebrates midsummer, and comes with a lot of interesting pagan traditions. But in modern times, the norm is to build a bonfire, jump over it 7 times (in Galicia at least), and eat sardines. We started off the evening with our room right on the beach. Awesome! And definitely useful throughout the night to come home for a bathroom break haha. There was live music all night long, both little roaming bands and dramatic groups on a stage. At around 7, people started wandering down to the beach to claim their bonfire spot. The city provides free wood for the occasion. Also, there's a 2-story piece they burn as the main event at midnight. All the bonfires on the beach really is a site to be seen. It's like a post-armageddon world. Since it was just Molly and me, we obviously didn't build a fire. We picked out a nice place on the beach to sit and enjoy for a while. It was probably 200 feet away from the monstrosity, and when they burned that we had to back up it was so hot! FIIIIRE! As the night wore on, we took advantage of some abandoned fires to hop over in an attempt to get ourselves lucky. It was exhilarating, really! My cousin jumped over way more than me. A great start to our cousinly travels!
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| Shield your eyes from the flaaaames!! |
