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EP 83: Aimee's Guide to Dangerous Catalan Festivals

• Rebecca West

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Where to find Rebecca:

Aimee

Or as we say in this time of year.

Rebecca

Well, that suggests of course, that you went to the party and you survived. How did it go?

Aimee

The party is ongoing. So the whole Fidos is like festival, um, Fiesta, right? So this is party time in Gerona. It is our patron Saint Day tomorrow, but there's always like 10 days of glorious shenanigans all over town. Free concerts in the park every night, um, and in various plazas all over the place, all kinds of different types of music for whatever tickles your fancy, So in Gerona near Old Town, there's a very, um,

Rebecca

continue, I just wanna let listeners know if you're not quite caught up in this conversation, it must mean that you didn't catch the last episode. So Amy does a

Aimee

right.

Rebecca

what this party is last episode. So get go, get caught up if you need to.

Aimee

Yes, exactly. So DSA Park, which is, a pretty decent sized park in near old town, filled with very tall trees and some walking paths is completely overtaken by a carnival. So there's. Rollercoasters and Ferris wheels and carnival rides and vendors selling, roasted yams and roasted chestnuts. And they roast them over coals or over, uh, firewood and all of the nasty Ask Carnival food that you can think of.

Rebecca

Oh wait, I wanna go back to these yams because

Aimee

Yes.

Rebecca

I was just craving roasted sweet potatoes and yams

Aimee

Oh.

Rebecca

'cause it's autumn, so, all right. Are they just handing you a hot potato? Like

Aimee

Yeah,

Rebecca

What's the deal?

Aimee

no, no. they roast yams and they wrap them up in tinfoil. And, um, you eat it like you would eat a banana, you know, you just kind of peel off the tinfoil and eat it. The really cool thing that I absolutely love about, uh, Catalonia. Is that you can also go into almost any grocery store and get a boiled yam wrapped in tinfoil at any time of year. They always have cooked yams available

Rebecca

You're

Aimee

as a snack,

Rebecca

live in Gerona between the parties and now the roasted yams. And this is interesting because when I visited you, we went to a roasted, spring onion festival.

Aimee

right? Yes.

Rebecca

And what's funny about that to me is that when people think about Spain, they often think that the menu is going to be incredibly meat heavy. But here we are showcasing all of these roasted vegetables.

Aimee

Yeah, I guess that's true. I didn't think about that. Yeah. The chestnuts are in season and, you know, you go outside and you walk around and then you come back home and because there are like, there are so many chestnut vendors. All over the place. It's sort of like Starbucks in any big city where there're, you know, two, there's like a, there's a location and then two doors down, there's another location and they're basically surfing the exact same thing. Um, so they're everywhere. So if you go out and you go walking and you look the little pop-up shops and different things in. In the area, you inevitably come home smelling like campfire because of all of the, they call them castana that are, I think that's right. That are, scattered around all of the plazas. Um

Rebecca

Now I am curious here in Paris, when you see the chestnut roasters, what you frequently see is somebody with a grocery cart then like, um, basically a small trash can that then has a fire of coals inside of it.

Aimee

Wow.

Rebecca

it's very, I don't know what the word is, um,

Aimee

The way you describe it makes me think, it makes me think of a homeless encampment where they've stolen a grocery cart and a dumpster or a little trash can, and they're. Roasting chestnut and selling them illegally.

Rebecca

Yes. Um,

Aimee

Uh

Rebecca

to the point where. And I wanna know what, what, you know, how, how legit the, the stands look for your vendors.

Aimee

mm-hmm.

Rebecca

thing was, because it's so hodgepodge feeling here in Paris, I was wondering if they're selling the chestnuts that are all over the ground here in Paris.

Aimee

Yes.

Rebecca

You as a nutritionist probably know there's two kinds of chestnuts and I learned that the trees in Paris are not dropping the kinds you can eat. So.

Aimee

Mm.

Rebecca

Folks listening, don't just go pick those up and try roasting them. You will get a stomach ache. So how, what the look like that you're passing in.

Aimee

I will, I will say for once that, Gerona is classier than Paris in this regard, the Castaneda, the little, carts that are, that have the roasted chestnuts, it's it's almost like the ice cream man or a hotdog vendor in Manhattan. It's that style of cart with a grill on it. And and then they've got the, you know, they've got the castias, the, the chestnuts there. And then in Lan it's called is what Yam is called in Spanish. It's, so you just trade the M for a B, which actually is kind of handy'cause it's easy to remember both Then and they have those as well. And then, when you place an order, you know, small, medium, large order of castana and they wrap it in newspaper, like the British would do fish and shit. So you have a cone shaped newspaper stuffed with hot chestnuts that you just peel and eat as you're walking about, looking at the shops or, deciding what ride you wanna go on or what sort of carnival game you want to play. And this is also the time of year where almost every Kalon historical tradition is out on display. So we've had cast. which are the human stacking towers this week. we've also had Sana, which is the traditional Kalon dance. If you've ever seen, like my big fat Greek wedding where people are doing the Greek dance in a circle holding hands. Sana is very, very similar to that. I would say it's a little bit more subdued than, than the Greeks are.

Rebecca

Have you joined into one of those circles?

Aimee

I don't have the footwork, but my child had the absolute horror of having to learn it in gym class. Much like those of us of a certain era had to learn country dancing in gym class. He had to learn the sarna and total cringe touch a girl's hands while he was doing it.

Rebecca

I

Aimee

So I feel, I really, I like, I'm super glad he's here because he gets to have that shared experience that we had growing up of having to dance with girls at the most awkward, horrible age to do it. And that, I feel like that's something that, you know, that's a, a struggle that American children have, have lost over the years.

Rebecca

Well, and especially since COVID, all of us have lost our social skills at all. So it's just, you know,

Aimee

At least, yes. At least in the big coastal cities for sure. Yeah. So the Sana is happening and there's capros, which are, that means big heads in Catalan. And there are all of these legends in this area, including like dragons and princes and princesses and clerics, uh, merchants. All of these characters that. Are very integral to cuddle on storytelling and legends. I don't know these stories, but every year during festival days, people will put on these costumes that. Are, you know, gigantic heads and bodies. So they effectively stand about 10 or 11 feet tall when the costumes are on them and they parade around dancing, which basically means turning around in circles. And then these huge, very tall lords ladies, princes, dragons and stuff are just kind of turning around, dancing as a marching, band plays, and then they Proceed through the, through the towns.

Rebecca

kind of reminds me like of our float festivals

Aimee

yeah,

Rebecca

they've got these giant, I think they kind of feel like paper mache, giant paper mache head.

Aimee

they, yes, that's a really good way to describe it. They almost look like paper mache, but they're much more robust than that. And it's just, yeah, You know, there's an excitement to the air. Of course the kids are going nuts because today is the last day of school and then they get the rest of the week off. So they get a five day weekend, as do many people in town. And, tomorrow is, the official patron Saint Day, dia de. But last weekend my son had his birthday party. On Saturday and he invited a couple of his closest friends over, and we took the boys out to the amusement park and then we took them to, Ou, which is always hosted each year in our town by the devils of On and on, is one of the rivers that flows through Gerona. So OU is the best, and I don't know, did I do it justice last time when I spoke about it? Okay.

Rebecca

you still, you had me plenty scared about catching on fire, so I think so.

Aimee

Did not,

Rebecca

how the children's one is a little more

Aimee

yes.

Rebecca

are at adult face height.

Aimee

Exactly and the children's one is tonight. We're super excited. We're totally gonna go. Shane and I made custom sweatshirts for the boys that had, uh, devils with pitchforks and flames and dragon spewing fire everywhere. And, in cuddle on it said basically light up the party and send La Feta. And then, um, you know, the 2025, right? So. The kids wore their custom sweatshirts, and that way they had something that could get holes burned in it. That one wouldn't be their own clothing really. Right? And two would be super appropriate to have holes burned in it.

Rebecca

I'm still just sitting here laughing my butt off listening to a parent. Go. Yeah, so we sent our kids out in clothes that could get holes burnt into them, as if that's normal.

Aimee

Everyone did. Everyone got holes burned into their sweatshirts. Um, I actually did get injured this year. Mild injuries, some sparks. I wore a watch and some of the sparks got embedded under the watchband. So I have some burn marks on my wrist. And, um.

Rebecca

you look rather delighted about it, to be honest.

Aimee

I'm, I'm so happy.

Rebecca

So.

Aimee

One of the boys, one of the boys, got a hole burned in his sock, because one of the sparks got tucked in between his shoe and his sock. it was a small turnout, I think because it rained an hour before it started, and it was just, you know, a good 15 minute rain, a nice, nice rain, and then it stopped. So the crowd was, I would say. Half to three quarters of what it historically has been. And so because it was much less crowded, we were in the middle the entire time. We never got pushed out to the side. We were in the thick of it with devils throwing, swirling sparkers at our ankles and, Over our heads pointing, shooting sparks at our faces and they do have a

Rebecca

assuming that, anybody listening this is.

Aimee

so great.

Rebecca

knowing that our posts could be listened to at any time.'cause

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

of a podcast. Two questions for you. First, are the dates regular and what are they? And second, if somebody doesn't live in Gerona and they really wanted to visit, what would your advice to them be for, you know, not being a local, but still really getting a good experience out of

Aimee

Mm. It is not a set date. It is always on a Saturday. The adult one is always on a Saturday during fetus, and the patron saint date is October 29th, so you know, fetus will happen during that time, and it's typically, it starts the weekend before the 29th and then continues through the end of October,

Rebecca

Which

Aimee

so,

Rebecca

to align nicely with Halloween, so you get

Aimee

mm-hmm. Totally.

Rebecca

you know, spirit

Aimee

Yeah, absolutely. Only better. So much better because it's yams and chestnuts instead of candy, and it's devils chasing you instead of you egging houses.

Rebecca

and honestly, I might risk the fire just for the yams.

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

Okay, so if I were not living there, um, you know, it can be really hard to experience a local festival properly if you aren't in the know. What advice do you have?

Aimee

So you obviously want to protect yourself, right? You want to cover your head because there will be sparks flying, you know, at head level. So you wanna cover your head. You want to make sure that you're wearing clothing, that you don't mind getting singed, like. You know, your great aunt is putting out her cigarettes on your clothing.'cause that kind of is what it ends up looking like at the end of the night. Um, you want to wear pants and ideally you want it to be not, especially, we were dying. Heat in our sweatshirts. They were way too warm and so we were all sweating profusely and very thirsty by the time it was over. So keep yourself covered, but I would recommend lighter weight material than a heavy sweatshirt.

Rebecca

For those who might not know. Um, avoid synthetics.

Aimee

Yes.

Rebecca

will melt. You want a cotton or a wall or a linen, because that won't melt.

Aimee

Exactly. Yeah. I've not had anything, any spark or piece of debris land and be so hot and so large that it goes through to skin, through clothing. That's not happened in the three years that we've been here, either at the children's or the adult one After this year in getting my wrists singed, I would recommend lightweight gloves perhaps, or long enough sleeves that you can pull them over your hands. I was holding onto the boys, so there were three boys that we were kind of corralling through this and I was making sure that I could see all three of them at all times and they were linked up arm in arm. And then I was linked to one or two of them, you know, on either side. as we were going through, so my wrists were exposed the entire time. Um, Shane has had a spark land on his cell phone. That did damage the screen. So that is something to think about. It's very minor. It, it just basically feels like a little piece of abras of something on the screen that, you know, he touches sometimes it didn't damage the screen in a significant way, and it's a memory for him. So it's like, you know, it's no big deal. Right. But if you want to record the festivities, you may want to get a pretty robust screen protector because if you get just, or something like an underwater, um,

Rebecca

Case thing.

Aimee

you. An underwater case because if you put just a plastic screen cover, the plastic may melt to the screen and that would be more problematic than actually the glass itself being, you know, a little bit. Damaged from, from a spark. if you really want to get crazy and provoke the devils, um, pick up the devils. This is another thing that people do is they'll rush up to the devils when they light twirling sparkers, and they'll grab them and hoist them up in the air so that the sparks kind of go even further everywhere.

Rebecca

Oh my gosh.

Aimee

So if you want to get in that close and play that game with them, obviously head to toe covering is not much more important. And you may wanna consider goggles as well. If you're sensitive to noise. I would recommend, earphones, right? Noise canceling, earphones or plugs or. You know, put on a good, a good pair of headphones for kids that are sensitive to noise, although the children's code of focus is much quieter. There's not the whistling shrieking types of fireworks and there's less, um, smoke bomb type things going off. So it's a little bit more amenable to children in that regard, but equally as dangerous.

Rebecca

Again, the look of joy on your face. Now, separate from the, the co, so the is the actual fire run

Aimee

That is the Yes. Yeah, that is the event where the devils chase you through the alleys and then it ends in a plaza and there's, more crazy ass it looks like, uh, burning Man contraptions with fireworks attached. Things you could never really do on the playa. S and those kind of roll around through the plaza, shooting sparks and fireworks everywhere. And then there's a big, yeah, there's a big typical kind of fireworks show, off a cathedral at the very end.

Rebecca

So in terms of vendors, things to buy, is it best to have euros on you or can you use your credit card?

Aimee

It depends on the vendors. Some are cash only. You can definitely, buy things with credit cards at. Several vendors. Usually those who are selling things like sweaters and jewelry, they'll definitely have the ability to take credit. But if you want to buy five euros of chestnuts, the yes hit or miss, some of them will, but many of them is cash only. Mm-hmm.

Rebecca

Now you have been around during the Christmas season in Gerona too, right?

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

a lot of these same vendors and Christmas markets? Is that showing up later in the season?

Aimee

It does show up later in the season. They're slightly different. For Feris, there is, I would say there's more food vendors as well as you know, we've got a cheese vendor, someone's selling, uh, Ratta, which is a herbal liqueur, uh, kalan, herbal liqueur, sweats, you know, sausages, meats, breads. So those kind of things. Uh, there's a lot of that in the plaza. I would say for Christmas it's more gift themed than, than that. A lot of those are replaced with gift themed stalls in the markets. Yeah.

Rebecca

Well, so happy. What was it?

Aimee

Bonus bonus fi, which, yeah, which basically means like, uh, I think the literal translate translation would be like, good festival or good party. Right.

Rebecca

that's fantastic. I'm so, I'm so glad that you guys are getting to experience that at least one more time.

Aimee

Yeah. Yeah, me too. I told Shane, I'm like, if school is really easy and it doesn't matter if we're there or not, I would totally come back just for this.

Rebecca

Obviously I am not a fan of the fire run, but the yams, you had me at yams, but you also, the way you described the plaza, that

Aimee

Hmm.

Rebecca

cool to me. So

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

be down the alleys with everybody, but I could see myself going to that pla to that festival next year. And

Aimee

Yeah, it's

Rebecca

coming back, we could

Aimee

really awesome. That would be cool. That would be cool.

Rebecca

Speaking of staying, I have a little bit of movement in my world. Um, uh, let's see. Milestone number one is that I got a letter in the mail that says I am officially on the cart, Vitale Healthcare System.

Aimee

Oh my gosh. How did you celebrate? Did you guys go out, was it It was, that's like Michelin star worthy achievement.

Rebecca

I know, and what's funny about it is I've worked so hard to make this happen, and I've sent it so many, I've sent it in so many times that it's sort of like when you up to your wedding and afterwards you're sort of like, it's almost like a letdown. You're like, oh, that's all there is. I

Aimee

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that after running marathons too.'cause you know, you spend six to 12 months training for this thing and then you run it and afterwards like people get depressed.

Rebecca

You're like, oh, it's over.

Aimee

It's over

Rebecca

but I am thrilled. Ironically, my husband has a cold right now, so I guess we're celebrating by

Aimee

using it.

Rebecca

health system.

Aimee

Beautiful.

Rebecca

because the French don't acknowledge a cold. They expect you to be sick for seven to 10 days and deal with it and get over it. I do have a friend coming to town, uh, next week, and we have asked her to replenish our day and NyQuil supplies.

Aimee

Excellent, excellent.

Rebecca

Um, the other thing isn't really a piece of news or a milestone, but. We're starting to think about what happens when Damien is done with school. And this means we have to start thinking about our visa types. So right now, as anybody who's been listening knows Damien's on a student visa, I'm on a visitor visa. A student visa allows you to work a certain number of hours in a year as an employee, not as an entrepreneur, but

Aimee

Okay.

Rebecca

have an internship. Um, my visitor visa does not allow me to work in France or have French clients. So when Damien is done with school, we have to figure out how we can stay here. also have an income. So Damien has been exploring what kind of visa a student visa would then translate into. And he's going to have to pick a lane, which is a very uncomfortable thing for an American.'cause Americans are used to keeping all of our options open and hustling in three different ways. And he's going to have a visa that either is an entrepreneur type visa or an employee type visa. We don't know which way we're going to try to go, and that's a fun thing to be another just fun uncertainty where you have to

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

without enough information.

Aimee

Yeah. Is there any clear tax benefit to one versus the other?

Rebecca

Hmm, good question. My impression is. My impression is that being an employee is always the easier path when it comes to taxes

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

employer is paying half of half into the system for

Aimee

Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca

Um, said, don't think that will be the thing that makes the decision for

Aimee

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca

if I were a betting woman, which I am not, I would put the money on entrepreneurship simply because we both. Are at heart. Entrepreneurs

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

both been running businesses for decades upon decades, and I don't see Damien wanting to be an employee at 50 plus years of age, so that's what I suspect will happen, but he is going to have to make that decision before he's got all of his ducks in a row that put

Aimee

Oh

Rebecca

that is in

Aimee

yeah. Yeah. And how hard is it to change?

Rebecca

Again, not something I have a clear answer on. Even the change from student visa to whatever that visa will be. We don't really understand how that works.

Aimee

Wow.

Rebecca

Um, and as Amy and I, as you and I have both said over and over again, that's the game of being an expat. You don't know what's in the next puzzle box until you unlock this one.

Aimee

Exactly. Yeah.

Rebecca

So that's it. That's my status update. Not a lot of information, but that's a really good glimpse of exactly how it feels to be taking this journey.

Aimee

Fun times,

Rebecca

I

Aimee

I'm assuming that uh, there will be conversations with the lawyer. Mm-hmm. Your immigration lawyer.

Rebecca

I mean, honestly, everything I just told you is from the lawyer. The little

Aimee

Okay.

Rebecca

he can give us, that's what we have so far.

Aimee

Wow, that's not super helpful. Um.

Rebecca

No, it's not.

Aimee

Is it like Spain where they just tell you the absolute minimum you need to know?

Rebecca

Oh, yes. Oh, in

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

if you don't ask the right question, you'll simply get a no.

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

And if you get a no in France. You let that be the final answer that's on you because to survive and thrive here, you have to keep asking your question until you get a useful answer. Whereas in America, people will stumble over themselves trying to help you figure out the answer. The French are not like that.

Aimee

It's sort of like it reminds me of being on our. Long road trip with a young child in the backseat and they're asking, are we there yet? Are we there yet? How long until we're there? And eventually they get what they're looking for, which is you arrive at your destination, but they have to ask every five minutes and all the different ways.

Rebecca

It's funny when you say that because to me it actually sparks the idea of a kid with two different divorced parents

Aimee

Oh,

Rebecca

figuring out how to ask what they need to ask of the right person at the right time

Aimee

yeah, yeah,

Rebecca

like to me.

Aimee

yeah, yeah. Because it does change depending on who's in front of you. The likelihood of you getting an answer that is helpful versus not. Yeah.

Rebecca

what time of day you ask that question, what mood that person's in, whether or not you said Bonjour first will all have a profound effect whether you get the outcome you're looking for.

Aimee

Oh my God, the French.

Rebecca

And I still love it. And that's what's funny, like I listened to you talk about the fire and I'm like, no, that sounds terrible. But navigating the French rules, to me it's, it is like a mystery box. It's like a puzzle box. And sometimes I get very frustrated with the puzzle box, but

Aimee

Right.

Rebecca

I like the challenge because there is an etiquette to.

Aimee

Hmm.

Rebecca

I have priorities and they aren't always you. And I

Aimee

Right?

Rebecca

learn from that.

Aimee

Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Boundaries are beautiful things.

Rebecca

Yeah. Um, but that's it. I'll have to give y'all another update when I have one.

Aimee

I think that's kind of it. Um, I mean, we don't have, we're going to the kids code of foot tonight and you know, kiddo, my kiddo wants to do bumper cars every day until they take them away. So I imagine we'll be spending a lot of time in Deveso this week, but. That's effectively all that's, that's going on.

Rebecca

Well, it is Halloween season. I

Aimee

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca

is getting to enjoy that on our behalf because they do not do it in France at all. It is one of the few things I do not love about living here. So hope you all took the opportunity to carve pumpkins and put on costumes and eat way too much Halloween candy'cause I won't be getting to join you in that this year.

Aimee

That reminds me Halloween is encroaching in Spain. Rather aggressively. Um, I saw pumpkins for the very first time being sold in the grocery store this year. That hasn't happened before. Yeah. And there is a, you know, there are some Halloween parties that happening, or that happened last weekend that are happening, you know, throughout this week since a lot of people are taking, you know, the latter half of the week off for, for d and s. I don't like it. I feel it doesn't feel exciting to me to have the other cultures encroaching on the culture of the place that I'm in. I want to experience this culture, not. Not mine, you know, which isn't even American, right? Halloween is not actually rooted in the us. We've just, uh, transformed it and then I guess exported our transformation of the original holiday.

Rebecca

It's a weird holiday when you think about it,

Aimee

It is, and, and like a lot of things that, you know, what we think of Halloween in the us, uh, it. Like a lot of things in North America, it is this hodgepodge of European tradition or European religion mixed with the local lore and legend, right? Because Halloween is, you know, it, it butts up right again, the right against the De Los Martos, the Mexican Day of the Dead, which in Spain is called All Saints Day. Um. I am gonna have to take a look at that.'cause I didn't know about that, but the, it's evidently a thing here as well. Maybe it's just not very strong in Catalonia. I'm not certain, but I learned about it in Spanish class today. I'm like, wait, what? So that's November 1st.

Rebecca

I think the reason I enjoy Halloween, aside from the fact that I just love a good

Aimee

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca

But it's one of the few times of the year where we get to acknowledge the dark side of life.

Aimee

Yeah.

Rebecca

And you know, we've lost our connection to death in a way that I think is very unhealthy.

Aimee

Yep.

Rebecca

afraid of it, and then we distance ourselves from aging and then therefore the aged, we distance ourselves from ends and therefore miss beginnings and middles and how important they are because they end like I think that. When you look at what Halloween can be and these kinds of celebrations, what they can be beyond the costume, I think they can be really powerful

Aimee

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca

why I'm not mad about it showing up. Um, but I definitely agree part of the joy of travel is experiencing the uniqueness of every culture. But I doubt that any culture is ever going to do. Halloween, the way Americans do. Christmas here isn't an American Christmas. I love Christmas here in Europe, I love Christmas in America.

Aimee

Mm-hmm.

Rebecca

different though, so I'm not too worried about it becoming, I don't know, I guess I'm just not too worried about it.

Aimee

Not too worried.

Rebecca

is what I ask,

Aimee

Give the woman a reason to get dressed up folks.

Rebecca

please.

Aimee

Well, you could always come down to Barcelona and attend some Halloween parties.

Rebecca

Sure. And all of my free time between all the other traveling my husband has made me do this year.

Aimee

Exactly, yes.

Rebecca

All right, well, like 10 minutes ago we told people we were wrapping this up, so folks we're wrapping this up.