¡Carnaval!

¡CARNAVAL!

this was my night in a nutshell. i got on a bus for 3 or 4 hours, dressed up with friends, met people dressed up even crazier than us, and had an amazing time. and then at 5am i was freezing and wanted to get back on the bus faster than humanly possible. i left at 630pm and got back at 11am the next day.


and yes, that picture above is of me and my friends with ABBA. Just in case you were wondering.


Carnaval was SO much fun I can't even begin to tell you. Well, I can and I WILL!

When you live in a sorority house and you need to get dressed up in stupid costumes, you and your friends get together and do so. However, having people over isn't really allowed here since we are guests in homes, so please imagine Jenny and I getting ready in our respective homes and meeting up to walk together to Ilana's.

Image - me, dressed as a witch, complete with hat. Jenny is also my height, dressed in a small indian frock with leggings because she is so tall. We look ridiculous as we walked through town center, but at least the people knew it was for CARNAVAL. I hope.

yes, thats a costume. breathe.

We arrive at the Bullfighting ring at 630 and are on the buses asap. We sit with a bunch of spanish girls who are dressed as SUPER FLAMENCO GIRL, complete with polka dot capes and matching SUPERMAN symbols on their chests. I immediately love them, if only for the reference to DC. However, they get better as my group of friends and our spanish girls sing common songs -- feliz navidad, random christmas songs, spice girls, disney, nsync... and their favorite, GREASE.





I do not know what it is about myself that I always end up singing GREASE with complete strangers in Spain. This happened when I was here with my parents in 2000 as well. Perhaps I was SANDY in another life. Probably not.


3 hours on a bus. At one point, the spanish boys dressed as braveheart smushed me between their faces, and I ended up with blue facepaint on myself. Typical of myself yet again... I can't even keep my makeup intact through an event. I didnt even GET THERE YET. gah. apparently the thing to do is go with your friends as a group costume, such as colored pencils or an animal.. such as chickens. Really, there were so many interesting costumes. Such as this one which, as you can see, is a bunch of girls dressed as god knows what, but they are attached to ostriches. AVESTRUZ! SEE! I TOLD YOU I WOULD NEED THAT WORD AGAIN! perhaps i was so excited solely for that purpose.

I was a witch, Ilana and Steph were in colorful shirts with a mask, Jenny was an indian, Mason was WALDO from wheres waldo, which proved to be an excellent costume, except when we lost hiim at one point. Chris was speedy gonzalez, a group of girls were the 4 musketeers, and mark was a pirate. all in all, quite an interesting group we had. jasmine was a cat, kathlena was an old lady without a bra (see first photo, it was actually really funny and since she got to stay wrapped up in her clothes, she was the warmest of us all at 5am), and saya was the police. lots of fun.



so its this giant party, with people EVERYWHERE (see above photo for even the tiniest idea of how many people there were. no, the people never stop). by the end of the night, there was not an inch of ground not completely covered with broken bottles, alcohol, vomit, or other bodily fluids. some man attempted to snatch my camera right at the beginning, but you best believe i got that back. too much work to get it in the first place. we walked around for a while and went to find the performances... at which point a guy dressed up like a stupid tiger cat called me, and grabbed my butt.

not okay.

I turned around, marched over to him and kicked him directly in the shin, saying the only coherent spanish sentence that popped into my head -- NO PARA TI! which roughly translated is, NOT FOR YOU. There are times in my life I am the proud owner of a size 11 boot. That was one of them.

On that note, thank GOODNESS for leggings and tights and my sweater. It was great weather until like 3am, but keep in mind, i'm basically in a witch dress, leggings, and boots on a piece of land that is almost an island, surrounded by the ocean. and yes, the ocean. not the sea. at 5am, i hated my life and wanted a blanket or a heater immediately.

Back to the story... we were watching the group performances and THIS MAN
who i can only assume was batty drunk, kept hitting jenny and i on the head with this rubber hammer. had he kept doing it, i would have taken it and given him a taste of his own obnoxious medicine, however, he escaped before i had the chance. this was almost directly after the tiger pounce incident. i was in no mood. and no, i wasn't irritated because i was intoxicated, in fact, quite the opposite.

steph and i remained the two normal sane people throughout the night with one glass of wine while the rest of our group demonstrated the different levels of being DRUNK, or in spanish, BORRACHO. Steph and I were fabulously sober while the others were fabulously acting like TROMPAS. rather funny really.



At one point, we found these guys dressed up as sorority girls, with the letters KEG on their shirts and fake navel rings and Mason took a picture with them. I found it hilarious.



People here are not aware of what it means to be poliitically correct... hence the HUNDREDS of people dressed up with blackface. Not kidding. Hundreds. SEE?



So here are a few pics of some costumes... edward scissor hands!



at 4am, steph and i had had enough of wandering around, so we wanted to find the bus station. problem, we had lost mason. yes, i can appreciate the irony in losing the guy dressed up as WHERES WALDO. so around 5am we found our way to the bus station, and we decided to steal a jacket from the lawn and sit on it on the ground and huddle together for body warmth. for 2 hours. everyone else went to the beach. i dotn know about YOU but going CLOSER to the water when its windy sounded like a horrible idea. i was happy to curl up with my sorority sister.

let me tell you, that whole sisterly bonding thing is awesome, even tho shes from berkeley, we instantly had a connection im really grateful for.

The bus came at 730 and we ran to our seats and then PASSED OUT for 3 hours. This is mark and I on the way home. I have NEVER had a walk of shame... which, in greek world, is walking back from a frat house the morning after a party. I have NEVER and will never do that. However, there was no option BUT to walk back from the bus station in Cordoba dressed like a witch and accompanied by a pirate. on a sunday. lovely.




needless to say, i came home, my family gave me lunch at like 12 instead of 3, and then i proceeded to pass out the rest of the day until 6 or so. maybe 7. it was great.

I am glad i had the experience, but I am not nearly a big enough party girl or crazy enough to want to repeat that any time soon.