El Dia de San Blas

Today was the day of Saint Blas (El Día de San Blas) which I had never heard of until my flat mate told me the night before. It's apparently only celebrated in Pamplona. It's not an actual festival, just a small celebration.

The following picture is was about 10am in the morning, with a parade for Saint Blas, in the old district of town outside the church of Saint Nicholas I think. Apparently he has holy healing powers for the throat, though stomach aches from all the sugary donuts seem more likely. I had no idea this was happening, until I saw the stalls in the afternoon at around 6pm =( Once again I miss out

Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures, my camera's battery died and I had to use my ipod touch, which only takes bad quality pictures. 

Courtesy of noticiasdenavarra.com
The link goes to the story (in Spanish)
http://noticiasdenavarra.com/2011/02/03/vecinos/pamplona/los-pamploneses-renuevan-su-tradicion-con-los-roscos-bendecidos-por-san-blas

There is a mini zoo in the Taconera Park:
There's a peacock, chooks, ducks...
El Parque de Taconera

Just some really cute pisos in the Old District

The Iruña Cafe where Hemmingway once had coffee
It's in the main plaza in the centre of the city Plaza del Castillo

Dia de San Blas
As part of the celebrations: street stalls sell sweet cakes and lollies

There were heaps of people and children!
And of course sugar all around

I'm finding the whole concept of Festivals in the names of Saints very pagan and superstitious! Todays festival has something to do with getting food blessed by the saint to gain healing properties for the throat. When I get 2 cartons of milk, another 2 cartons of drinks and bread for under 3€ at a chain supermarket, a small doughy cake at the stalls cost over 7€ - apparently because they had been "blessed" by this saint. 

The infamous Running of the Bulls is also referred to as San Fermin,  remembering (or celebrating?) the martyrdom of a Christian by being tied by his feet to a bull and being dragged to his death. (according to Spero News http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=13035)


Martyred Christians died because it was better to die knowing and proclaiming Christ, than it was to deny Him and live without Him. It's ironic and a bit sad that their martyrdom, which should have underlined the preciousness of the gospel of Christ; has now replaced the gospel altogether.
Pamplona seems like a Catholic city with its many imposing cathedrals, its festivals of Saints and a religious private university; but their approach to God seems more like one's approach to superstition and tradition. 

It's not clear here: I wanted to take a discreet shot
The woman in white on the right has taken out five dogs for a walk
I seem to see a lot of different types of dogs here.

Dinner with a baguette on the side of course
It looks worse than it is! I could only get red onion, and the egg has red stains,
plus I put in soy sauce,which made it look brown.... but really it's yummy

I had an interesting chat with my flat mate over dinner tonight. I asked him a burning question of mine: 

Why do all the old ladies (ancianas) wear fur coats, dresses and stockings in 3°C weather? 

The stockings are practically bare skin in the cold - being at least 40 years younger than them, I can't even feel my bare fingertips after a few minutes never mind bare legs! He does not personally know these ancianas but he explains that they were the generation that grew up under Franco's dictatorship with rigid ideas of what is proper - that women wear dresses, and men wear pants. 

What do they think of girls wearing jeans?

Nothing good.  

It's weird to think that something I consider history still has such a pervasive grasp on people's social consciousness. But when you think about it, Franco's dictatorship only ended with his death in 1975, so people born in the 1960s would have grown up under his education system, making them the generation over 50 today. 

I've noticed that no one under the age of 50 wears a fur coat, while almost uniformly, those over 50 do. Is this an indication of the drastic changes in Spanish society since Franco?