Festival de San Juan

One thing I love about Spain, and even Europe in general, is that they have so many well-rooted traditions that we don't really have the equivalent of in young America. An example would be San Juan. For us, the actual first day of summer is no big deal because it's so ridiculously hot already and it's been summer already for 3 months basically. But here in Spain, we (I wrote that instinctively) like to celebrate major events like the Summer Solstice. So every year, all over Spain, especially along the coastal cities, they celebrate the festival de San Juan aka summer solstice aka longest day of the year. In the coastal cities like Santander, a little before midnight all the young people go to the beaches to hang out and fiesta with their friends and wait until the bonfire is lit at midnight. There are lots of little fires people have in their circles though too. The main purpose of the fires is to bring something from the past year that you want to leave in the past so you burn it and are refreshed for the new year. There are still some people who do that, mainly students looking to burn textbooks, and they come to see the bonfire and then go home. The entire under 30 population spends the whole night at the beach. They had a small sized midway with a band and food and games, but basically it's a party on the beach all night long.
A large part of my group all met up at the beach and spent a lot of time there together which was a lot of fun now that we've all been able to build up some friendships. I even saw my host sister while there and talked to her and her friends for a really long time! It was so cool to see her outside of the house and we could both just be more like friends then quasi-siblings! School was somewhat of a struggle for all of us in the morning because close to no sleep happened, but it's all worth it when you are learning about a culture!

Here's me with the bonfire (it was huge!! There are fire fighters that control it because people used to throw things into it that made it go way too crazy)