The parade has been bumped from its real place last night by yesterday's photo of the Barcelona match - but we didn't leave Barcelona until very early this morning so today still counts as part of the weekend (so early that Ed was able to be in school in Cambridge for the first day of term by 9.30! - Quite possibly the only day he won't be late!).
The three kings arrive in Barcelona by boat on 5th Jan, and then parade through the streets accompanied by a magnificent and surreal carnival cavalcade, including giant animals, dance troupes, transformers and teletubbies, and a lot of pandas. The three kings bring presents to Catalan children. According to our local informant (Ed's friend). each child picks one of the three kings to be their personal present-bringer for life. They then write a letter to that king each year with their list of requests - equivalent to our Santa letters. Each king has a float in the parade, with fishing nets on long poles being dangled out from the sides into the crowds. There is great excitement (and not a little angst!) as small children - many balanced precariously on the shoulders of a parent - lunge and grab to put their letters into the right nets. Meanwhile, huge showers of boiled sweets are fired from the floats, generating lots more mayhem as everyone rushes to catch them. The kings appeared to have picked up a lucrative sponsorship deal; the sweets were labelled with one of four names, Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar or Samsung. We loved it all! Then some lovely food and wine and back to the hotel, trying not to think about the 4.30 start in the morning! A perfect weekend.
