new year's eve in august

In 1994 there was a blackout in a little town called Berchules in the mountains during their New Year’s Eve celebration. So this town decided that they would start a tradition to celebrate New Year’s Eve every first weekend of August. Apparently (from what I have been told) this town has a population of about 4,000 people, but every year their August New Year’s celebration has drawn more than 20,000 people. Yes, spaniards, as I’ve said before, can find any reason and any thing to celebrate. My friends called me up Friday night and said “Molly we’re in Granada, we want to see you.” So I met up with them and they told me that we are all going to celebrate New Year’s Eve tomorrow night in Berchules (4 hours away from Granada). They had already traveled 5 hours to get to Granada first. So I went because, well, I’ve never done anything like this before, I wanted to spend time with my friends, and I thought it must be worth it if they are willing to travel a total of 9 hours there and 9 back for one party.

Everyone fills the streets and waits for midnight to come. There is no ball that drops or TV that everyone is watching. But when the town clock strikes 12, they eat one grape for every chime. Maybe its kind of like our tradition, how they say it is good luck to eat one blackeyed pea for every day of the year. They also had fake snow blowing in the air, fireworks and everyone sang “I wanna wish you a merry christmas (with the cute spanish accent)… feliz navidad, prospero ano y felizidad” about a million times. It was quite an interesting and fun night, a very cultural experience. My friend Noe called me today and said, "molly guess who I saw on the news??" haha yes this makes the third time I have been on the Spanish news.

I did what I do every New Year’s Eve when I am with a group of my friends. I made everyone come up with new years resolutions. I realized on our bus ride to Berchules that exactly five months ago from that day I was getting on the plane to come to Spain. I remember how scary and hard that was. Now it’s cool to see what has come about in these past months here. I could have never predicted or expected all that has happened but in so many ways it is better than anything I would’ve designed for my self. So as we were making new years resolutions I realized that in exactly one year I will be returning to America. And I wonder what all will come of this year ahead. Feliz ano nuevo! (in august)!