Carnaval, etc.

Weekend of February 19-22:
I got a call last Thursday from Sarah Y, a good friend of mine from my a cappella group who is studying in Madrid this semester. She was visiting Andalusia for the weekend, so I got to see her a bit on Thursday afternoon. I got her royally lost, as I do best, but it was so great to see her and compare our Spanish experiences so far. She gushed at how cute and little Seville is. Ha.

Saturday was Carnaval in Cadiz. This was my first seriously negative experience so far. We spent all day preparing our costumes. I was lamenting my lack of costume stuff, since I have so much at home, and flipped through my closet here for inspiration. Luckily, I came across the “Yo Soy Fan de Gonzalo” vest from the bachelor party in Granada. After a few stops and about ten euros, Kai and I were fully equipped as Trash Fairies. We wore the vests with pretty pink wings, and put together toolbelts with wands and kid-sized cleaning supplies. We received many compliments, and didn’t lose each other the entire night (a plus of reflective vests). Sasha and Ally looked equally great as Fire and Water.

I don’t know that I expected for Carnaval, but this was not it. I guess I thought there would be like Andalusian traditions; food, music, dancing. Instead, it was just a drunken craze. We went through “We Love Spain,” a travel group targeting college students. Therefore, the bunch of buses were full of Americans planning (and starting) to get completely wasted. The group leaders made sure a hundred times over that we knew that the bus was leaving at 6:00 AM whether we were on it or not. We signed the liability form stating that we knew this. We began our evening around 11:00 pm, and I was already ready for bed. The following hours consisted of fighting through groups of drunken people, wading through vomit and bottles on the ground, and dreaming of my bed. I also received more male attention than I’ve ever wanted. I’m used to comments, but the two blonds together in a mass of drunk men was too much. People followed us and tried to grab us and it was not fun. We met up with other Clarkies who are studying in Madrid, which was nice, but it increased our group number which was hard to keep track of. There were three things that were actually enjoyable:
1. Peeing. Peeing at carnaval takes place in alleys. At one point Sasha, Ally, Sasha’s friend from high school who we met up with and I went as a group to find an alley. We are not yet experts at this art, so we simply formed a pee wall. The three non-pee-ers made a wall and held our jackets between us so the fourth could pee in privacy, and we rotated out. It was funny and great friend bonding. The Spanish women who know what they’re doing thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
2. Observing costumes. This was more appalling than entertaining, but people-watching has never been more strange. Since political correctness does not exist here, every ethnic group imaginable was represented in costumes. I don’t think I could have thought of that many different types of blackface costumes if I tried. Most people had store bought costumes (every other store in Sevilla stocked up on costumes) and walked around in big packs with the same costumes. We walked by a pack of chickens, a pack of sexy nuns, a pack of “Chinos,” a pack of Rastas, etc. Kai and I received greetings and high fives from other people with yellow vests.
3. As luck would have it, I managed to find the choir performance. Singing groups all around Andalusia compete for the privilege to sing at Carnaval. The winning group mounts the bandstand around 2:00 AM, as we happened to be walking by. This group was great, all men in sharp white uniforms (complete with top hats and coattails) accompanied by a few instruments (I couldn’t see what, at least guitar). They sang cheerful, upbeat Andalusian folk songs (?) with fabulously animated faces and choreographed arm movements. The majority of our group hung back in the plaza, but Rob (from Clark, studying in Madrid, a friend through my sophomore roommate and through sustainability/environment club/events) and I easily entered the VIP section right in front to watch. We were both cheering, dancing, and clapping along with the rest of the [drunk] audience, and this was highly enjoyable, despite the circumstances.

I’m sure I would have had more fun if I had had anything to drink, but I needed to stay awake until 6:00 AM, I didn’t want to pee outside again, and I felt that our group needed a sober leader. Generally speaking, I’m not a big drinker, which makes it shocking that I even chose to go to Carnaval. Around 4:00 AM Sasha and I were totally over it, and managed to separate Kai and Ally from the Madrid group. We really wanted to find the beach and just get away from the throngs. We pulled our group, a chain with hands held, through the masses in the direction of the water. We managed to see water, but there was no way to access it. We figured they had blocked it off so drunk people wouldn’t drown. We decided to start making our way back to the meeting point, since we had no idea where it was, and we really didn’t want to be late. After seeing many “cops” (costumes) peeing, Sasha and I finally found a real cop whom we asked directions. It turns out we were very close to where we had to be. Therefore, we arrived about an hour and a half early. Sasha and I were fine with that, and set up camp to wait. We killed much of this time talking to Spanish people, which was actually good practice. I was proud of how well I was speaking then, even though I was cold, tired, and cranky, and held my own very well. I even used complicated verb tenses such as, “If you stop asking me where I’m from I will take a picture with you.” A few hours ago we had committed to speaking Spanish, since there were so many Americans and people speaking to us in English, which was actually fun. People would speak English and we would look at each other, confused, for help. When we were asked where we were from, Sasha and I casually responded, “Sevilla.” We gave a group of young Rastas the frustrating “maybe” answer for every country they guessed, which included every country in Europe before the US.
We finally got on the bus, where the two young female group leaders were too drunk to function. They took attendance several times, but could not figure out what was going on. It started to be amusing when they reached their literally thirtieth headcount, each time resulting in a different number. Even though everyone had signed the form, they refused to leave at six with two girls missing. One of the missing girls had come on the bus, told them that she was staying, and left. We all reminded the leader of this, to no avail. “Why is there an empty seat???” “Because Jessica’s not coming back with us.” “And nobody cared to tell me this??” Needless to say, I was happy to get back to Sevilla (even if it was 8:30 AM) and Kai and I stopped to get a warm freshly-baked croissant on the walk back. Not only did I have a terrible time, but my shoes were covered in other people’s vomit and urine, and this experience totally screwed up my sleep schedule. I hate sleeping til 10:00, so dragging myself out of bed at 3:30 PM was depressing. What made things even worse was that there was another hiking trip that Sunday. I would have loved to go, and knew after the fact that skipping carnaval and hiking instead would have made for a great weekend. The lesson learned is that it’s important to do research before doing things and going places, and doing everything I can isn’t necessarily the goal I want. I just hope Feria in Seville is better (I’ve heard it’s the same), and I fear for my perfect little plazas, after seeing what Cadiz looked like. And that was the worst experience I’ve had so far.