romeria de loja

And this would be another cultural experience I am adding to my collection :) My friend invited me to her hometown, Loja to go to the "romeria" I didn't really know what to expect, except to bring a white top, jeans, and tennis shoes. I was thinking, "what kind of event do Spaniards go to in tennis shoes?? haha" but she told we were going to go to the campo, like fields and we'd get dirty.

So I get there and we meet up with her friends (who've I've met a few times that I have been to Loja) and they are making a float. So we spent a few hours decorating it and preparing the food and drinks. The next morning everyone in the town who had made a float lined them up in a street and we followed each other out to the campos outside of town. There we all set up tables and chairs and umbrellas and basically hung out in the field with our cool floats all day. It's a cute tradition.

Well my friends found the news people and told them there was a girl from Memphis with them and they needed to come interview me. I tried to get out of it because talking in Spanish on TV seemed really intimidating, but i mean when people are chanting your name to do something, it's kind of hard to resist... So that would be my 4th time on the Spanish news in this past year and 2 months, except this time I was interviewed... They just asked me the basic questions: What would a girl from Memphis (pronounced memfees in the Spanish accent) be doing at the romeria in Loja, what I thought of it, if I'm having fun, what I am doing in Spain, if I liked Loja etc...

The only reason people here say I am from Memphis is because when they ask me where I am from I either say, "I don't know..." or "I am from many places." Then I list all the places I think I am from, Kansas, Charlotte, Boone, and Memphis. They usually only recognize Boone. haha no just kidding, they usually only recognize Memphis because of the Spanish basketball player guy, Pau Gasol, who used to play for the Memphis grizzlies. I didn't know who he was until I got here or even that Memphis had a basketball team named the grizzlies... haha i learned that here in Spain!