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Author Topic: The Story of a "Roscón de Reyes" + "The Cabalgata"  (Read 1275 times)
spiffy
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« on: January 11, 2007, 11:56:04 AM »

Well, some of you may have heard about a somewhat famous:

ROSCÓN DE REYES

Hehehe, so here is it's small story. :p
It was the 5th of January, around 12:00 o'clock, when my mother was nagging to get me to help her carry the shopping around (which I always do, with or without nag -_-), I reminded her we had to get the Roscón de Reyes today. So, we went off to buy it from a bakery which occupies the place of the old pet shop where I used to buy crickets for my frogs. :O

My mother wanted to get one that weighed half a kilo, but they looked small and squashed.
"No! No! Uno de un kilo, jeje" I said
"No - es demasiado grande..." replied Mum to the baker's.
Then, I and my mother had a small "discussion" about what was better, a 500gr or a 1000gr Roscón. I managed to "win" so we bought a heavier Roscón.
"But you must eat it!"
"Sure I will eat it! Yummy!"

Anyway, when we got home, before putting it in the fridge, I put it on the couch, and took a picture of it in its box. XD



Later on, we got to eat a bit, so I here is what a real Roscón looks like. I put the V4 in front just so you know more or less how big it is (tamagotchi's are the unit of measurement on THIS forum!!).




Well - so you know a bit more about the Roscón, Roscón means "Big Rosco", and a "Rosco" is a round shaped thing with a hole in the middle, like a Donut, or an old 25 peseta coin, which have holes in the middle, or a '0', or a "Rosco de vino", which is a yucky powdered type of Donut eaten at Christmas. Cheesy

So, Roscón de Reyes means a bit like, "Donut of the Kings". In Spain, Father Christmas doesn't come, but the Three Wise Men, known here as the Reyes Magos (Wizard Kings), and this is their "food" I guess. :p  Inside, if you are lucky, you can find a "lucky charm". If you get the lucky charm you supposedly get luck, and if there are no beans inside the Roscón, then you must pay for the Roscón next year too. Smiley

After a couple of days, my mother found a lucky charm in her piece - a king, and then I happened to nearly bite into one in my piece, so this Roscón actually had two lucky charms.. :O I guess big Roscones are for big families, and they must have more than one charm. Mine was a bear. XD

This is what they look like - the king is what my mother found, the bear what I found. As for the pig,  that must have been from a past Roscón. Cheesy




And about the Cabalgata - I am not sure exactly what it means but "cabalgar" means "to ride a horse", and it takes place on the 5th of January, usually in the evening.
Since in the newspapers it said it would be nearby where we live, we decided to go, and I took a phew pictures, but only of the most boring stuff.

As usual, the Cabalgata came late...But when it did we all knew because a long line of police cars went through. The amount of people there were is amazing! I was actually quite lucky to get a place at the front. Smiley It was absolutely packed with people!

Anyway, after the police cars went by, the opening "thing" went past - a load of people - I mean policemen - riding horses:





After that, I don't have anymore pictures of the cabalgata, but many big "coach-type-things-like-what-you-get-at-carnival" went by, and the people on each one, would throw sweets, so its ideal to have a bag with you to get them. Strange thing is, I hardly ever eat them, they just sit there forever. XD

At one point, a Narnia coach spent ages in front of me, and apart from giving us inhuman amounts of sweets, they brought out these artificial snow and foam cans, and covered everyone with snow, so I had artificial snow (which looked like balls of polystyrene) all up my sleeve and all over my hair, hahahaha. Cheesy Cheesy

I also got a chance to see some REAL fireworks in REAL life. Since some arquitect building was sponsoring one of the coaches, as they went by they began shooting these green and pink fireworks in the sky. It was so blinding, but so pretty. =) You could even see it on the ground! At the end, they added some kind of sparkling effect, and then it all ended. It was beautiful! Smiley I have seen "fireworks" before, but they are known as "petardos" and all they do is make a loud noise and a puff of smoke. Not exactly for weddings. Cheesy

At the end, an ambulance, more police cars and a fire engine went by "just in case there was an accident" and they proudly showed off to everyone how loud their claxons were. =S The streets are also quite disgusting, hehe, squashed sweets everywhere, the poor sweets which haven't been caught:



I was about 1cm higher when I got home because there was so much stuck to the bottom of my trainers. Cheesy Not much fun to get off - but it came off. Now the streets go "cruass-cruass" when you walk over them, heehee.

And last, but not least, there was a nice full moon that night. For some reason, I like full moons. Smiley It looks better than half moons and crescent moons, and I like to see them suddenly emerge from behind a building, and if they are bright enough - you can sometimes see them during day, haha Cheesy










« Last Edit: January 11, 2007, 11:58:16 AM by spiffy » Logged


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Kokuma
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« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2007, 01:00:01 PM »

*appalause appalause*

Really nice information potpur about Spanish Christmas, Spiffy.

The ring-cake looks delicious.
In Finland we put full peeled almonds into the Christmas porridge (rice porridge) and if you get one you'll have luck for whole next year. So that's similar to your Roscon charm thing.

Sweets stuck into sneakers bottoms? yuck...

The riding polices look...policious (lol)
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alicetwasbrillig
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« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2007, 05:24:16 PM »

Spiffy, thank you for this lovely story.  I enjoy learning about other cultures (I'm hoping to rid myself of the "ignorant American steriotype")

I want those sweets O_O
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spiffy
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« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2007, 05:11:58 AM »

Glad you enjoyed the story. ^^



^^
The sweets I picked up, you can see a lollipop at one side. Tongue
There are lots of them with names of companies on them, like BBVA (bank) or IKEA.

The sweets were strange to take off. Eventually I put a load of water on the soles of my shoes, and carefully tried not to leave any footprints, and after a bit of scuffing outside, it came off. Cheesy
They are fine now, heehee.

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Mimitchi
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« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2007, 11:54:48 AM »

Very cool story. The news here rarely covers events from other countries and rarely is it from a personal account. Thank you for sharing your experience, sounds like a really fun tadition. I don't celebrate anything fun like that here. I've learned so much just from reading the board these past couple of months Smiley I've learned also that I live in a country with somewhat boring traditions compared to y'all lol...

The Roscón is HUGE. It looks yummy. I agree with you.. official measurements here are only in Tama sizes lol. I laughed so hard at that part 

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Bojko
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« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2007, 09:49:58 PM »

Haha, wow Spiffy, awesome story!

The Roscon looks soooo delicious!! Congrats on finding the bear charm.

(tamagotchi's are the unit of measurement on THIS forum!!) - Well said. 
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Jiro
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« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2007, 03:48:04 AM »

those are nice pictures Spiff Smiley
I really love those Donut of King's pictures Smiley
I bet you had a great2 time Cheesy
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