Life in Cartagena

I've thought of a wizard wheeze to keep the number of posts up. It was Cruces de mayo over the weekend. May Crosses - shrines I suppose dominated by a cross and with an Andalucian theme. Obviously this is blog material even down to the brightly coloured photos . The trouble is I've done it before. We also went to a sort of Mediaeval re-enactment up in the Castillo de la Concepción but that smacks a bit too much of the "dear diary" sort of blog. One problem for your average ethno-sociological commentator is the unflinching cyclicity of Spanish life.The same things keep coming around. I've complained before about the posters for circuses and other shows which say "in the usual place" The fact is that, as a circus operator, you can save a bundle of advertising costs by printing just the one size fits all poster. The circus will be in the same place as it was last year and the year before that and so on. It's only the occasional outsider who wil...

Today, as we walked past a church in Cartagena, La iglesia de Santa María de Gracia, Maggie commented on the number of people coming out of the building. "Very religious.... in Cartagena," she said. I wondered if there was so much toing and froing because of the Pope's retirement. As we passed the door there was a notice "Entrada Besapie" - foot kissing entrance. Neither of us had the faintest idea why. We were on our way to lunch. As we ate, on the telly in the corner, the Queen was kissing the feet of a statue which, with a bit of Googling, I found was the Cristo de Medinaceli. The Medinaceli Christ is a carved wooden figure which was crafted in Seville sometime before 1650. It fell into the hands of the Muslims some thirty years later when a Spanish garrison in Morocco was overrun. The Spanish got it back about a year later. It is now in a church in Madrid. On the first Friday of March people queue up to kiss the feet of the statue in the hope of having t...

There always seems to be something going on in Cartagena. Generally it's not Earth shattering stuff but nice little event after nice little event. Gay Pride last week, classic sailing boats this and we also have the Gastronomy Fair - The Taste of Cartagena. The Gastronomy Fair is simple enough. Nineteen local restaurants with a stall selling three little tapas each. Nearly sixty tapas to choose from. The idea is that the tapas are a bit special - roast pork cheek with peach, crunchy leek and a reduction of soya (I'm not absolutely sure that English uses reduction for a sauce but it sounded right enough) or a pear cake with paté and spicy pepper sauce. The food was great but the thing that impressed me most was the information sheet that came with our food vouchers. It listed all the tapas so it was dead easy to decide what you wanted and ask for it at the stall. How unusual, a menu. What a fab idea to use written information - who knows,it may even catch on.

We live right in the centre of Cartagena, I mean right in the middle. First to pass by our street this evening were the Gay Pride crew to celebrate the end of a week's celebrations for Gay Pride Day. Men in high heels, rainbow flags everywhere and, of course the anthems by Gloria Gaynor and the Village People. Then it was La Roja, the Spanish Selection, the Spanish National Football team taking on the French in the European Cup. The bar at the end of the street has a huge telly outside. Oohs and aahs from the crowd and when the ball ended up in the back of the net the National Anthem. Then the Anthem again. And when it was all over the fireworks started because tonight is San Juan. The celebrations for the longest day/shortest night. I suspect it will be a loud night.

Lots of Spanish men have grey hair and quite a few are as tall as I am. My clothes come from Spanish shops and I have my hair cut here. Nonetheless people recognise me as a foreigner long before I speak. I too play the game of recognising Brits in the street. I'm often right though I'm far from infallible - sometimes they're Dutch, German or Belgians but mostly, when I get it wrong, they are Spaniards. Last night we went out to get a couple of drinks and eat something at one of the Cruces de Mayo bars. As is so often the case at fiesta type events we had to buy tickets first and then hand the tickets over at the bar in return for the food and drink. I suppose it centralises the cash handling, increases security and also leads to a slight over-expenditure on the part of the customers - just to be sure. We joined the scrum at the bar. For once I wasn't too worried about shouting my order through the din. At the bar, there were price lists everywhere...

Cruces de Mayo, May Crosses, is really an Andalusian custom. Murcia, the community, not Murcia City which all we Cartageneros learn to snigger about, shares a border with Andalusia. There are other strong links between Cartagena and Andalusia through the port. On top of that there is a lot of Andalusian blood flowing through Cartagenero veins for the Andaluzes who came to work in the mines out at La Unión. For this, the first weekend in May, Andalusia is everywhere in Cartagena. Local groups tied in with the church, generally through the Easter parades, put up flower crosses as part of a tableau of Andaluz life. Alongside are the temporary bars selling local and Andalusian food. This year there are also lots of bars that have their own crosses possibly better reflecting the priorities of most people out on the streets. Food and drink first, religion after. It's as easy to get a glass of chilled fino or manzanilla as it is to get a beer. Women wearing the flouncy skirt...

I finish early on Wednesday afternoon/evening (take your Spanish/English choice) As I walked home this evening I had a little chuckle on seeing the inner cones of some of the Klu Klux Klan hats, used in the Eater parades, parked besides the table of a coffee shop. Their owners were enjoying a drink and a chat. Monday evenings I'm not so fortunate. I finish at 10, when both Brits and Spaniards agree, it's night. This Monday there were people in military uniforms on the streets, more people sporting those long silvered staffs (hachotes) used by the penitents in the various processions and several more were carrying a thick glossy brochure with a picture of a bleeding Christ on the front. Cartagena is definitely  revving up for Easter.

It's Carnival time in Cartagena. Think Rio; think semi naked women with lots of feathers. But that's tomorrow. Today it's chirigotas. Scurrilous songs sung by ad hoc choirs about people, places and things in the news. You know the sort of thing - brave captains who refuse to leave their sinking ships or down on their luck bankers. Chirigotas are typical of Cadiz but we have them here in Cartagena too Now imagine us amongst the audience in the local theatre. A performance that depends on recognisable songs, double entendres, a grasp of slang. We are soon lost. Wallowing. At least we find the inability of the audience to behave properly amusing. Charming maybe. After an hour I haven't recognised anything longer than two short sentences. We sidle away as the scenery is changed. One more cultural experience.

As I came home at lunchtime the streets in the centre of town were heaving with shoppers. In the little square by the Icue statue there was a long queue of youngsters waiting to have their picture taken with whichever one of the Three Kings was on duty. I know it wasn't the African one, Baltasar, and I don't think it was Melchor because, if memory serves me right, he has a big white beard to prove he's European so it was probably Gaspar the darker skinned Asian representative. I could be wrong of course because I wasn't brought up with the iconography of the Three Kings. Strictly Santa Claus in Yorkshire. At work this evening one of my students seemed most put out that I'd never heard of Swarovski jewellery or more particularly their glassware. He'd bought his girlfriend something from their range for Christmas. Just to make sure that the message was rammed well and truly home my last student of the evening asked if I was ready for Christmas. She confessed t...

Cartagena has been celebrating its annual Carthaginians and Romans festival over the past week. There have been various re-enactments of key events in the story including weddings, seaborne landings, a pitch battle and lots of  parades.   Yesterday evening we saw the parade of thousands of people from the various troops dressed in their outfits and we also went on to the big camp where each of the groups sets up a bar cum restaurant to raise money for the next year's event. It's all pretty impressive but, at the same time, it's also old hat; we've seen it before. Alongside the camp there is a market. The traders who spend most of the year selling their overpriced sweets, jewellery and cakes dressed in medieval costume, at medieval markets, don togas for this one. We wandered around, we drank spiced "Roman wine" we ate garum but the stall that impressed me most was one selling a microbrewery beer called Icue.  There's a little statue...

It's San Juan, the shortest night of the year. A night for setting fire to things, blowing up things, We were set to go out to Cala Cortina, to an organised event with fireworks and Flamenco but we never got further than the streets around our house. Children, unsupervised, setting off bangers. Groups of older people sitting around, drinking it in. Ambulance sirens wailing. Family groups with dad setting the example. Fireworks bumping into buildings, bouncing off cars, exploding around our feet. More sirens wailing.

Easter is big in Cartagena. During Holy Week the brotherhoods, generally dressed in the tall Klu Klux Klan type hats, parade with military precision through the streets, often in the dead of night, to muffled drum beats whilst carrying huge carved religious statues on their backs. My language exchange pal, Carlos, told me a story about how one of the statues, Saint Peter, was maintained by the Navy. In order to pay for the upkeep of the float, for the costumes and other paraphernalia he is employed by the Navy and receives a salary. At Easter he gets his only shore leave of the year. An admiral sends him on his way with strict instructions to be back by midnight. But Saint Peter doesn't do as he's told and when he gets back to barracks he's drunk - he sways from side to side and he gets locked in the brig till next Easter for his disobedience. It sounded like a strange story and one at odds with what I understood to be the sobriety of the events with floats called ...

Apparently the locals, Cartageneros, have a local word for the apple. In all of Spain it's manzana but round here it's pero. Pero just happens to be the Spanish word for "but" as well. So let's say you've built yourself a nice May Cross. The neighbours come out to have a look. "Yes, very nice, but...." So now, on the display around each cross there is a pair of scissors stuck into an apple, into a pero. That'll cut out any buts! "Yes, very nice"

Carnaval wasn't cancelled today. There were a remarkable number of feathers and glitter and flesh coloured tights. It was like a mini version of Rio, or at least what I imagine the Rio Carnaval to be. In amongst the young, the teenagers and the middle aged were a significant number of groups of older people, or third age as they are euphemistically called here, and at least one group of people with physical and learning disabilities. Everyone dancing, most smiling and then the concerned mothers walking alongside and occasionally rushing into the midst of the parade to refasten a feather boa here or reapply some glitter there. It was all good fun. Still no free beer though.

I know that in the UK it's just a few pancake races, a big selling opportunity for Jif and then ashes on the forehead for religious folk. Meanwhile in Rio they're whooping it up to the beat of a samba drum and down in the Canaries or even in nearby Torrevieja some chap in huge high heels will be over the moon because he has been elected Carnaval Drag Queen. Carnaval, the run up to Lent, is big in Spain. Last year, in Ciudad Rodrigo , we watched as everyone dressed up and ran around the streets chased by fighting bulls. This year we decided to stay in town for the weekend to see what the Cartageneros get up to. We had the programme and I was quite keen on the 12 noon event as it included free beer. It never happened. Neither did the big parade at 6pm. The reason was because it was raining. True it was that heavy, persistent grey English rain and there was a lot of it but can you imagine an English village fete being cancelled because of a few drops of water? And how did eve...