Felices Reyes!

Roscón and chocolate

Ok, to start, happy new year, but that's not the purpose of this post. Today I'm all about Día de los Reyes (3 kings day). In Spain this marks the culmination of the holiday season. The tradition is to exchange gifts today rather than on Christmas. For children, they choose their favorite king (Gaspar, Melchor, or Baltasar) to write a letter to, just like American kiddos write to Santa. The day before, the kings parade into town in the cabalgata. And during the night they come to homes to deliver presents. Similar to leaving carrots for Santa's reindeer, Spanish kids might leave a little treat for the camels. Not sure if they leave milk and cookies for the kings, if anything.

Uncoincidentally, last night was my first back in town after New Year's in Germany. With a few friends, we went out to dinner. It was packed with people dining on noche de reyes. Then we went out in the center, where there was plenty of ambiance and you could see lots of people more dressed up than usual for ultra-casual Lugo.

Today the traditional food is a round, yellow cake called roscón de reyes. In one piece there's a trinket hidden, and whoever ends up with that piece either has good luck, or has to pay for the next year's cake. I got to try roscón right before Christmas break at the school's chocolatada. There was Spanish style hot chocolate (meaning much thicker than American cocoa) and plenty of kings cakes. They even let me take some home.

Fer sandwich! Half of the English speakers at my school