Balmaseda and the medival market

Yesterday, I went to Balmaseda for the medieval festival with Eva, Carolina, and some of the international students who live in residence with Carolina (a girl from Ecuador who's doing her master in chemical engineering as well). It was really interesting, and Balmaseda was a nice little town. We took a train to get there and it took about 45 minutes. It was a beautiful day  at about +25 and a bright blue sky until about 3pm when it quickly clouded over, and cooled off...then rained all night long. I always thought that the weather was unpredictable and changed quickly in Saskatchewan, but it's nothing compared with here. You never know what to leave the house with. If it's only 15 and raining in the morning, it can easily be +28 and sunny in the afternoon, and vice versa.  Sometimes it even changes 4 times in one day.

The medieval market was really quite amazing. They had such a plethora of things for sale. There was also an Arab portion of the market, as during medieval times, there were many arabs present in Spain, and even an Arab king trying to take over Spain. There were all sorts of things to see; people making horse shoes, baking bread, blowing glass, spinning wool, little shows in the plazas, and even belly dancing. There were also copious amount of delicious foods from deserts of any kind, to turkish foods, to sangria stands, to octopus. Eva and I had turkish tea, I tried octopus for the first time (it was actually quite good), ate home made gummies, drank sangria and bought delicious cake. Also, we did a little bit of touring around Balmaseda and saw the church of San Juan and the old bridge which was built in medieval times.

When we were leaving the festival, Eva decided to buy her mom a very large clay vase. When I say very large, I mean approximately half the size of Eva. We had to carry it through the streets packed full with large crowds, across the old bridge, and then about a kilometer to the train station. Then we had to get it onto the very crowded train, off the train, to the metro station and on the metro. It ended up being quite hilarious.  Thank goodness we didn't break it right at the end!

Hasta la proximá vez,

Kathlene