Jasmin's Visit and the Feria de Dax

About one month I was exchanging emails with Jasmin and she asked if I was going to attend Oktoberfest in Munich again this year. Unfortunately the answer was no....as I will be taking 2 weeks of vacation somewhere else (secret haha) during the same time. However, I told her that I had already visited her 3 times here in Europe and she had yet to come and visit me. Well that settled it. Within a week she had bought her ticket to come and visit me for 4 days between Thurs and Sunday.

So she arrived on Thursday and after picking her up at the Airport I had to go back to work. So I circled all the things to see in Toulouse on the map and let her wander :)

Friday I decided it would be a good night to have dinner at my house. So I invited a bunch of friends and finally we were 14 people all eating Mexican fajitas, tacos and enchiladas. And Jasmin got to meet my posse here in Toulouse haha.

Saturday!!!! And the start of our crazy weekend. In all we were 7 people, two Canadians (yep, I met another Canadian here in Toulouse), one German (Jasmin of course), two Italians, one French and one Columbian. We got up nice and early to take to the road with our two cars (I rented a car for the weekend). Luckily for us we were going in the opposite of direction then the rest of Toulouse. The radio kept informing us of the huge traffic jams going between Toulouse and the Mediterranean coast whereas we were heading to the Atlantic coast. Around 11am we arrived in the beautiful city of Biarritz in the Basque Country of France. We spent all the day, swimming, lounging and sleeping on the beach. The water was gorgeous and calm.

View Larger Map

Around 8pm we started the short drive to the town of Dax. The first 50km to Dax only took the normal 40mins....however the last 5km into Dax took nearly one hour!!. Why you ask? Well first I have to explain why were going to Dax in the first place......

This weekend was the Feria de Dax/Fête de Dax. Many of you have probably heard of Pampalona and the running of the bulls non? Well in fact many many of the cities here in the South West of France and North West of Spain doing something similar (just not on the same scale as Pampalona). Basically each city sets aside a week or so (in the case of Dax it was Wed-Sun) and they celebrate the city. Parties, Theatres, Bands, Concerts, no running of the bulls but a similar thing called Course Landaise. And as well they did the Corrida (Bull Fight) on Friday. But we missed all this, we simply went for the Saturday night party.

So back to why it took us one hour to go the last 5km.....because the normally quaint town of 5000 people swells to over 100,000 or more for the Feria de Dax. So there was a mass of cars entering the city trying to find somewhere/anywhere to park. And park anywhere they did. On both sides of the road, on meridians, on sidewalks, on bridges, in ditches. Unbelievable!!!

Finally...after parking the car and re-finding the other carload of friends we started the celebration. And well....other than try to explain it to you...i'll let the pictures do the talking. Suffice to say it was a ton of fun. One big street party!!! (more commentary after the pictures...so keep on scrolling)



We danced and partied until around 6am the re-found our car and slept in the car.....for all of 3.5hr...or until the sun baked us out of the car. At that point we cleaned up, and started the drive back to Toulouse to finish the weekend.

Overall it was just one big awesome time!! But for me the most incredible part was just that...everyone was having fun. Everyone was nice and friendly, dancing in groups. I didn't see fights, didn't see broken windows or cars tipped over. Just good friendly fun.

I was back at work on Monday re-telling the stories of the weekend to my co-workers. And of course they laughing that "I actually went to the Feria" As for them...it's nothing new..and if anything they avoid the big crazy party. But I was explaining to them how cool it was that it was so friendly and calm.

Of course..that's not to say there is never any trouble. And as the one pictures suggests there is definitely some clean up to be done. But overall, obviously if they continue it every year it means that what little trouble there is, doesn't outweigh the positive.

And I was explaining to my co-workers how this just doesn't exist in Canada....or more to the point...it can't exist. We just need to look at recent examples like the Oilers Stanley Cup playoffs, Calgary Stanley Cup Playoffs, Canada Day riot etc... It just seems that you can't get massive amounts of people drinking and partying together in the streets without significant damage being done. And i've been trying to figure out why. Obviously, like anything it's not that everyone goes crazy...it's that a small number go crazy and ruin it for everyone. But the fact remains that these "small number" are there and that large concentrations of people, alcohol and city streets simply aren't allowed in Canada. Of course my co-workers joked with me that this must mean the the French are just 'more civilized' than us Canadians haha

But I wonder if it's just because it not a habit it Canada. Here in Europe things like this are common, they happen all the time. These big street parties and paryting in the streets. And because it's so normal...nobody takes exception. It's just another occurrence. It's happening now, it will happen again, probably next week if you want to look for it. Whereas in Canada these events are not the norm..in fact they are the opposite. They are rare. And so the times that they do seem to pass, it's something new and crazy and exciting and you better take advantage of it (and unfortunately for that 'small number' of people, taking advantage of it means drinking yourself silly and then 'breaking shit').

Ok..i'm not going to rant any more...people probably stopped reading when they saw the perty pictures. But it's a shame that these kind of events can't happen in Canada. They really are a lot of fun. Either way, it was a great great weekend with my Big Little German sister.