São João

Hello everyone,

After what i wrote about on the last post (on the next day) Porto (my city) had its most exciting festival of the year. It's also called the "longest night of the year", "São João" festival [read about it].

I woke up early so I could clean up a bit. I was not even sure if anyone would come this year as I have parties every year but did not schedule anything this time round. I called my mother and she did say she'd come by with both my brothers and a friend so I asked my husband to get more groceries.

After cleaning up I set up some typical decorations and also the table.

Mother arrived after that and we started making the traditional meal which consists of:
- "Caldo verde" [read about it]
- Grilled sardines
- Grilled green pepper
- Olives
- "Broa" [read about it]
- Lots of wine, beer and other alchoolic beverages.

Since some youngsters do not appreciate fish and soup a lot and because its a festive ocasion, most famillies also have barbecues. We got some barbecue chicken from a store for my brothers since they are such people.

After eating we went out but during the meal we could already see and hear all the noise coming from the party people outside. I live in the city center so whenever anything happens in my town i'm imidiatly a part of it.

We finally went out to see the fireworks. It isn't the most impressive firework show ever but we always have a blast, i think us portuguese just appreciate the festivities anyway, regardless of how small.

The tradition (not very old) is to carry a plastic hammer or some Alho porro [Leek - the flower head leaves a onion taste so people try to get you to smell like onions, I hate it really] and hit people in the head with it. It's a lot of fun, a really crazy festival. If you come over for it i recommend not wearing open shoes and picking confortable shoes as well. Other than that anything goes.

We walked around a lot chatted with a ton of unknown people and some friends and I ate a hot dog. Portuguese street stall hotdogs have a ton of stuff in them including lettuce, mushrooms, corn, onions, of cours sausages. cheese, ham, chips, ketchup, mustard, mayonaise... [read about it in french]
Those are basically calorie bombs but they taste so nice when you had a couple of drinks don't they?

I eventually returned home safe and sound (not sure how) and when i woke up the other day I found out that I cleaned the whole place when I returned and I do not even remember doing any of that.
My husband told me I'm the best - getting drunk and cleaning as a result pleased him. -_-;

The next day I had a massive hangover so i slept a bit more than usual. I invited my friend Vania to come by the river and watch the anual rabelo boat race.

It was ridiculously hot that day but we still took Mari with us. She had fun and drank a lot of water.

 We saw the pretty boats but also crazy folk jump off the bridge. Some kids who live there do this every summer but it was the first time i have seen tourists do the same.

 I said goodbye to my dear friend and we went back home. We were beat! (especially because of the heat).
I had also received a package I did not have time to open so I did just that. It was no other than my lovely meta dress the Egl Portugal (portuguese lolita community) members gave me for my birthday!

Swan Chandelier High Waist JSK (olive)

Hello Lace page

Isn't it amazing? I fell in love with this series when i went to japan the year it came out. I saw it in the meta store and drooled. I admit this is not the version I liked but i'll still make it work. I hope i can get it in the version I love some day!

And that was my Saint John weekend of 2013.
Hope you liked reading about it, I really want to share our culture with you guys hence the non-lolita posts.
Jo