Noche de San Juan Student Takeover

This post was written by Miguel Gonzalez del Castillo LC student session 1

As the program's second week starts to end, it is time to truly immerse ourselves in one of the biggest celebrations in Spain: La Noche de San Juan. This celebration marks the official start of the summer and can even be utilized to cleanse one's spirit and bring good fortune for the upcoming year. The students could go with their host family, friends of host families, or Program Leader (to ensure no one missed out on the fun!). Everyone gathered by the beach in the Parque del Mar and although the celebration was very crowded, all the CIEE students found each other to celebrate the night away. The festival contained characters dressed like demonios (demons) with handheld sparklers, fire breathers, talented drummers, and a live concert. The fires and sparklers resembled the cleansing of the demonios for purity and good health.  Along with this, there were enormous dragon statues with sparklers lighting up the night sky.   Overall, everyone had a great night; it was an excellent closure to our program's second week.

As for myself, I went with my host sister and CIEE roommate for the night and met up with some friends. We stood right next to fire breathers, danced with the characters for the festival, attended a free concert of O-ERRA, danced to flawless drum solos, and danced traditional Mallorcan flamenco with the locals. Eventually, the demon characters brought out a massive dragon statue with tons of sparklers and ran around with spinning sparklers. My friends and I were daring enough to run under the sparks to dance in the middle of a sparkler with the actors.