Carnaval

What do people mean when they say the "third biggest carnival in the world"? I really couldn't come up with an answer to that either, maybe a mix between Rio de Janeiro's beautiful costumes and beautiful people dancing and Mardi Gras' drinking. Or maybe they meant the apocalypse.


On Wednesday I had my first quiz of the semester, and let me just say that I haven't written or studied for anything in about TWO months, then add the fact that I genuinely keep forgetting that part of my being here is to get an education. On the other hand, classes here are very similar to Junior High or High School, with worksheets and attendance. The little town I live in is very quiet and usually by Thursdays I start to get cabin fever and a serious need to go downtown where there's people hustling and bustling. Interestingly enough, there are 2 movie theaters in Sevilla that don't dub their movies into Spanish [side note: when Spain was under the Franco dictatorship, a law was passed that all foreign movies had to be dubbed into Spanish] so Andrea and I went for a nice evening walk along the river and watched Steven Spielberg's War Horse. 


Our university's international student center really makes an effort in integrating us into the Spanish community by providing us with babysitting opportunities, going on 'field trips', joining the intermural soccer team, etc.  So on Friday morning we met downtown nice and early to catch some buses and go see the ancient Roman ruins of Italica. This little city is not very far from here, and the ruins are still in very good shape... considering that they are more than 2000 years old. Personally speaking, I think that one of the best things about Spain is that there were so many different cultural influences that didn't destroy each other's architecture but just accommodated it to suit their needs. So basically you have a mix of 4 different cultures in the same area. Not to mention that they built HUGE infrastructure back in the day with pretty much sticks and stones. The Italica excursion only took up the morning, so in the afternoon I joined the lovely Calgary girls and we had some lunch and beers out on a patio [side note: we got pooped on by birds... good luck?] and the rest of the day we discussed about what trips we wanted to take and looked into flights. Finally, we decided that we would go out on the town for the first time since we've been here. After dinner we went over to Calle Betiz (think 17th Ave) and bar hopped a little, probably not a good idea considering that Saturday was the big Carnaval day.


From what I heard on the news, Carnaval is the third largest festival after Rio de Janeiro and Mardi Gras, and it actually has a really long history. The Egyptians had a 'carnival' style celebration, and when they were conquered by the Romans the Romans liked the idea of it, so they carried forward and brought it to Spain. You don't just go to Carnaval, you have to be 100% mentally prepared for it, and that includes costume. We were the 7 deadly sins. As I mentioned before, for the rest of my life I will refer to Saturday night as the apocalypse, so I will not dwell on the specifics. The bus picked us up at 8pm, the drive was an hour and a half to the beach town of Cadiz (which is beautiful by the way) where there were probably thousands of people dressed up and partying it up on the streets. Honestly, for the first few hours I was really caught up in the festive mood, looking at all the great costumes and walking around, but by 2.30am I hit the wall, and everything just went downhill from there. There were no public restrooms, only a few select porta-potties, so the streets were to everyone's disposal. We got trapped in a street where literally everyone was pressed against one another. There were riot police. There were people passed out on the streets. The amounts of garbage was just something else. All of this combined with the fact that its kind of cold at 4 am, and that our bus wasn't coming until 530... not good. We have come to accept the fact that the Spanish are not big planners or concerned with efficiency, but if you have 40 buses and like 2000 people waiting for the buses, then its probably not a good idea to make the meeting time and place all the same. Common sense? Also, I was so put off by the lack of bathroom access that all I had to drink the whole night was half a water bottle of water.


So now its Sunday, and I got home at about 8.30am. The first thing I did was take the longest shower of my life, go to bed, wake up for breakfast, go to bed, wake up for lunch, go to bed, wake up again. Also, I might need to burn the shoes I wore last night.


Eighth lesson: Don't do anything like Carnaval ever again. The whole point of this trip is to be open to new experiences, and I am definitely not one to judge before I'm somewhat more informed on the issue at hand. So yes, I had an idea of what I was getting myself into, but I went with an open mind and found out it's just not for me.