Festivals in May

I've stopped writing as much lately.  For a few reasons; less vacation time, homesickness, and after 8 months the novelty has worn off a good bit. It's May 21st and I'm sitting here wondering what happened to all this time!  Even though it has been passing more slowly, I have done a couple things lately (that aren't as cool as sea diving) but worth sharing.

May 1st was a national holiday honoring the workers of Spain- so why not celebrate our hard work by...not working and going to a cheese festival. A few of my teacher friends and I went to a nice city called Trujillo (about 2 hours away from Badajoz). Trujillo is a Spanish city of 9860 inhabitants and is famous for its monuments and its annual festival- of queso :) The main square transformed into a mini cheese village, made up of 100's stands displaying the finest local and national cheeses. "Competition amongst the stalls is fierce and prizes are given for best annual cheese winner".

Did you know that Spain is the fourth biggest consumer of cheese behind France, Switzerland and Italy ? Here are my tickets. Each sample of cheese was .50 cents.

 

Samples of cheese with sweet jelly on top. 

 

Some of the cheese were delicious and others were overwhelming. 

 

Tara enjoying her bite of cheese!

I read up on the festival before writing this post.  I went to this website (click here) to read about the typical cheeses that I sampled.  Below are the most popular selections;

Manchego cheese - Spain's most famous cheese and often heralded as Don Quixote’s personal favourite. Made from La Mancha sheep’s’ milk, it is famed for a rich flavour and beautiful texture.

Ibores cheese - A fantastic local delicacy made in Trujillo and the Extremadura region. Queso ibores has been given PDO protection signalling its quality and uniqueness. Favoured for its smooth texture and creamy taste, this goat’s cheese is a delicious accompaniment with a refreshing beer or crisp white wine.

La Serena cheese - Queso de la serena is a delectable cheese made from sheep’s milk. One of the local
Trujillo cheeses also awarded the PDO; the cheese is curdled with a coagulant found in the pistils of artichoke giving it a light bitterness that compliments the cheese’s naturally slightly salty taste. Traditionally, La Serena cheese is eaten by slicing off the top and eating the inside with a spoon.

Torta del Casar - This delicious Extremadura cheese is named after Casar de Caceres - the city of its origin. Unlike La Serena which uses artichokes, Torta del Casar uses a coagulant found in the pistils of cardoon - a local wild thistle. The cheese was given PDO status in 1999 and is famous for its production process - it takes the milk of 20 sheep to make a single 2.2 lb wheel of cheese. Similar to La Serena, this cheese can be eaten with a spoon and is great for families

A view of Trujillo

 

A type of cheesecake

The cheese festival was fun and delicious.  A lot of the English Auxiliares ended up going to this festival (from looks of my facebook feed) because it was near by and a nice way to try all the typical cheeses.  The guests of honor this year was the country of France, which I tried of course- pretty delicious.

The following weekend there was a festival in Badajoz called "Los Palomos".  This festival was in revenge of the mayor who made a "not so popular" comment about the gay community in Badajoz.  He pretty much stated that Badajoz didn't have any "gays" in which he used the term "palomo" which means dove.  Long story short, the city gets together to celebrate- pretty much to prove that yes, within Spain exists a gay community. My friends and I went out to party at the festival- it was pretty much just another weekend in Badajoz with a little more color :)

The streets were filled with rainbow décor, the symbols of doves, and free popcorn (palomitas in Spanish)

 

Myself with Meredith (Texas), Daron (Oregon), and Tara (Canada)

 

We scored a sign :)

The next big event was Tara's birthday on May 10th.  She rented out a super cute apartment in Caceres (the city where this journey all began 8 months ago! Caceres was the city where we all had our first orientation together) The main attraction was the WOMAD.  WOMAD is a music festival that has guest performances from countries all over the world. On their website, the writers post that "WOMAD, World of Music, Arts and Dance, is an internationally established Festival bringing together artists from all over the globe. WOMAD continues to present music that we feel to be of excellence, passion and individuality, regardless of musical genre or geographical origin, to thousands of festival goers everywhere." So there you have it! We spend a nice weekend together enjoying beautiful weather, street food, good friends, and amazing music. Of course not to forget Tara's big 24!

The main stage (p.s. this event was entirely free!)

 

Tara and Kate relaxing on the rooftop

 


 

My favorite ladies!

This weekend will be our last big weekend spent together in Badajoz.  Our friends are throwing a goodbye party to celebrate the past year spent together.  I'm very lucky to have met such awesome people not only in Badajoz but the surrounding area.  I might even start packing this weekend! Scary.