The Spanish Night (Spring'10)

Last winter was coldest and longest in many years. Maybe that’s the reason why
Spanish night in the end of April seemed so warm and sunny. Sangria, tapas and a lot
fiesta and fun- the key words for this year’s Spanish night.

This year Erasmus students from Spain with a help of ESN organized a party
you could never forget. A mix of introduction of Spanish cities and regions, its people
and traditions and as well a deep look at the stereotypes most of the world has about
Spain and Spaniards. So, if by any chance you didn’t know, not all Spanish dance
flamenco, salsa is not Spanish but Latin American countries’ traditional dance, and even
though Spanish indeed party a lot (they have huge amount of holidays that would make
anyone of us non – Spaniards truly jealous) they still manage to be one of the largest
economies in the world, which would be hard to imagine without hard working people.
Yet, their true believe is that “you should work to live, not live to work”, and that’s an
attitude that many of us could learn from the Spaniards, so making a world a much less
stressful place to live.

But that wasn’t all. Girls from dance studio “Alegria” performed with traditional
dance of Andalusia (Southern Spanish region) – flamenco- and later on, inspired from
the hot- blooded flamenco, the Spanish students pulled the rest of us to the stage as well
and showed us some other traditional dances that all expressed the light- minded and life
(and each other) loving attitudes Spaniards have in their life. As it could be expected,
this attitude was very well taken by the rest of the students from other countries as well.
If you have ever been in Spain or been with Spaniards, you know that any party
or fiesta is not imaginable without delicious food and drinks. Our party wasn’t an
exception. Home- made delicious tortillas, gazpacho, sangria and a lot more of
traditional Spanish cuisine made you feel like being in Spain for real.

No wonder that after the official part of the Spanish night, many students
couldn’t stop to celebrate and Riga at least in some places turned into very Spanish kind
of city. Laughter, wild dances and expressive conversations- that is how Riga was in the
night of 23rd April.

And finally it didn’t seem cold at all.

By Elīna Ladinska, ESN Team member