Enterro da Gata - Funeral of the Cat

This is the reason of my trip to Portugal :D.

1889 was the birth year of Enterro da Gata (Funeral of the Cat). Students celebrated the end of the school year and buried the cat. [burying the cat has the meaning of burying failure and therefore, celebrating a successful year].

1989 was the first year of recovering of this tradition by the students of University of Minho, Braga. Since that time, all students celebrate their year in May in hope of a successful year.

Nowadays, School stops for one week (2nd week of May), and all the students can attend to these celebrations. Days and nights are full of concerts, festivities and traditions... everyday is a party that only finishes with the sunrise.

 One of the last year's concerts - more than 20000 people :D

Special Traditions:

Velório da Gata

In Velório da Gata (Deathwatch of the Cat), some crazy guys (me included of course) go out in the streets of the city and pay respects to the dying animal. The streets are full of people to see the cat carried sitting in a toilet. The procession ends with a serenade. For this serenade, students dress our traditional costume:

An unknown guy dressed with our traditional costume.

Cortejo

Cortejo (it's a kind of a parade) is the moment when all the freshmen and course finalists of that year are presented to the rector of the university. With this, freshment climb one step on the hierarchy of traditions.

Santoínho

The last day of Enterro (and the best one for me) is time for the last tradition.

We go to a place called Santoínho and we have the ultimate party with popular music, traditional food and a lot of wine. It's also a day for old students to come and have a party with us.

The end... Time to reboot the system, get to the real life and wait for next year.