Entierro de la Sardina

Hey Everyone! Yet another blog entry! this one is from about 3 weeks ago now during the Easter holidays! Murcia has a festival called Entierro de la Sardina! which is literally burial of the sardine! Strange name for a festival don't you think? Well let me explain! You see here in Spain Quaresma or Lent is a lot more known than it is in say New Zealand or North America! But bascially Lent (in English) is the 40 days/6 weeks that lead up to Easter and traditionally is the preparation period for believers of Christ in which people fast/prayer etc! Anyways it seems to be quite a big catholic tradition which is probly why it's more known here in Spain! moving along! Traditionally people here would give up eating meat for the 40 day period and could only eat fish! Thus at the end of these 40 days they say Adios, Goodbye to the fish and dig into the meat again! Of course this is kind of ancient history! we talked about it a bit in class but no1 observes lent anymore however they still have a Fiesta to celebrate the end of it! Seems fair right?

Interestingly enough they don't bury any fish! this is a figure of speach, what they actually do is Burn a giant sculpture of a Sardine! And of course what is a spanish fiesta without a parade? More to come! check out these pics of everything!

Here is this year's fish that is lucky enough to be burnt! It's quite tall! you can see it up at least 3/4 stories high!

OK so during the parade it kinda turns into a huge free for all, crazy fighting match when they give out toys to the public! Really quite an interesting experience! they have these huge trucks that you can see in this picture crammed fall of toys, balls, stationary, beauty products etc and at the end of the parade they throw them out to everyone! there must have been about 15 trucks like this! I caught myself a soccer ball and a couple other things but really it's so dangerous i am surprised no1 gets seriously injured! (at least that i've heard of) Anyways before the parade began i got a VIP entrance to take a picture in front of one the trucks! :D

Some Band Members dressed up from the movie Mars Attacks! They were pretty cool in the parade to be honest!

Here's a nice shot of the street i was in! as you can see lot's of people and also it rained! Can you believe it?!

Spongebob! lol yea and dora! XD

These are the robots from the movie robots! XD pretty cool!

I'm not sure who these fuys are! rather strange storm trooperS? o.O

Lots of marching bands, whistles, flags etc!

Awesome dragon with fireworks coming out its mouth! and no, that's no me you can hear! XD

Oh these were the Mars attacks guys! they were a rhythmic band! and then a whale XD

SOme kinda cool transformer guys, i really don't know what to call them! how bout light people on stilts? anyways you can see lots of light show type things going on in the background!

Kinda random video! light things saying 'La Sardina 2012'