End of Term and Christmas

So, the end of term arrived at the University of Cantabria and as such I discovered a tradition of Spanish university life. Called champanada, it involves skipping the entire last day of lectures and going to have a massive party outdoors (this outdoor partying/drinking actually has a name of its own, botellón). I think the name champanada is a play-on-words between the sound of a bell ringing and champagne, although I could be mistaken. Also I am not sure whether this tradition is the last day of every term, or just Christmas.

Anyway at 11am, I headed down to the patio-terraces that are on the hill facing the university which are the main area for UniCan's champanada. There was about 500 people there all milling around, partying and just generally getting off their face before lunch. Pretty awesome sight, really!

One funny memory that comes to mind was the fence where the boys kept running to in order to relief themselves throughout the day was next to a block of flats (although to be honest in this country, they are everywhere). The occupants were so intent on dissuading the young gentlemen from 'watering the plants', that some of them used their shower attachments to spray water out of their windows onto the offending youths below, although this attempted deterrent was in vain.

The whole event began to finish at about 7pm as students scuttled off to sober up before dinner with mummy and daddy (most students in Spain still live with their family as they stay in their home town for university). At 11 o'clock people started to hit the main bar zone until about 3am. So was a pretty intense day of celebration!

Whilst back in good ol' Blighty over Christmas, I indulged in the usual activities (i.e. pubs and clubs) in my home town, in addition to making the most of the sales at Bluewater. I didn't go too mad though, as my cash reserves were being saved for my 6 day trip on New Year's Eve for Barcelona.