Cultural Festivals are something that people mostly know only if they have experienced, and others know because they enjoy reading and learning about other cultures and what they do and the differences that culture has with their own. La SanSe is something that most people do not know about if they are not native form Puerto Rico, but if you want to it has similarities to with Mardi Gras. This Street Festival is held at San Sebastian in El Viejo San Juan, it has been celebrated annually since 1954 and since then is something that still to this day continues to be celebrated.
The reason which La SanSe began to be celebrated was in honor of the Christian Saint and Martyr Saint Sebastian. It takes place from the last week of January from Wednesday to Sunday. If you attend the festival in the morning you will see the markets selling artisan merchandise and see them creating things from scratch. They have small activities for kids like reading books to them and telling them the story of the celebration and all the folklore. There is the parade of the “Cabezudos” which are people walking with giant heads that are made of paper and the clothing is matching to the theme of the person the head is supposed to be. They also have the traditional music and dances all around until the sun goes down.
If you attend to the festival after the sun goes down, you will have the opportunity to experience something different from what they do in the morning. They begin to sell rum from crates, and other alcoholic drinks, traditional food and food trucks are also included in the festival, they have different performances of well-known artists of the island. There are five different plazas in which you can enjoy all the live music and the different foods and crowd. From any part of the five plazas in which you can enjoy the festival you can see the Puerto Rican flag everywhere and many people dressed in red, blue and white to represent the flag.
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I’ve had the chance to attend this festival many times and each time I loved it more than the one before, because you see and experience new things each time you attend. You get to learn the history and traditions of the island and the story behind the name of the street. This festival also gives you the chance to meet new people from all over the island since many travel three hours by car or take a boat from Vieques or Culebra which are little islands that are property of Puerto Rico. The reasons of why I enjoyed attending the festival was because of the different environments it showed and the diversity, it allows all age groups to attend. Every part that I attended you could see everyone in the party spirit and smell all the fried food and the water of the ocean that is behind El Morro giving you the feeling of calmness.
Those who have travel to the island and have had the chance to attend the festival have very good things to say about it, in an online review given to TripAdvisor peoples opinions about it were, “ Despite wall to wall people, everyone was friendly, well behaved, polite and the streets were spotless. The city is charming and beautiful!” someone else said “OSJ is amazing. Great food and amazing views. There is a nice vibe to the city, and it is really clean and organized. There are shopping streets, castles, beaches and piers, all worth seeing!! There is definitely more going on during San Sebastian festival.”
Others said, “I went to the San Sebastian street festivities this year and we had a great time. Large police and security presence, very clean and organized. Great food, great music and many souvenir shops with high quality art in clay and wood. The historic sites have beautiful views of the city and ocean. You will definitely have fun and have great food in San Juan PR” All the reviews that the Sanse gets are good, there hasn’t been not even one bad review about it, because it is something that everyone enjoys and wait all year to attend. The only bad thing that has been said about the Sanse is that it is hard to find parking or leaving because taxis are hard to catch because of all the people that are there and trying to leave when the time comes.
