I saw a multitude of people all walking in one direction so I joined their numbers. The crowd stopped in an open plaza while the drum continued. All of the sudden out came these crazy people dressed up in red and black (a combination of clowns and demons, it looked like). They whipped out all sorts of little firecracker things and started running around screaming, setting them off. Some had pitchforks that shot sparks out of the prongs, one guy was running around with a torch sipping oil/alcohol and spitting it out on the torch so it grew bigger (I can’t think of the word when the fire all of the sudden heats up and sort of erupts).
After they exhausted that place (it smelled horrible), they beat their drums to the next plaza where they did the exact same thing. And after 10 minutes they started one of their concerts. And that was my first Carnaval activity.
Friday was my birthday! I slept till 1pm or so but woke up with a constantly runny nose. I immediately sat down to do some of the heavy load of homework I had for the week only to have my madre mutter to herself “on the computer as soon as she wakes up! I don’t understand it…” But I ignored it and kept working. I was on the computer from 11-5, and although I took an hour break to eat lunch and another hour to IM friends, I was working diligently otherwise. The paper I wrote I ended up getting a 9.5 out of 10 which is A+ according to the strict Spanish grading. My teacher likes me XD
I think I went to the beach after that….but I’m not quite sure. If I did, it was cold and boring. What can I say, the beach has lost its glamour. Whatever I did in the meantime, after dinner I got ready to go out for my birthday and when I came out of my room in my party dress and leggings, my madre said “You’re going out? But you’re sick!“ and I said “I know but it’s Carnaval! I have to go out!” (she didn’t know it was my birthday) and she said “If you go out like that, you’ll be confined to the bed tomorrow! But do whatever you want, I’m just saying…it’s ridiculous to go out when you have a cold.” Haha well the story ends when the next day I’m completely well and her advice is not very useful!
At around 9:45, I met one of my American friends in town b/c she heard it was my birthday and wanted to buy me a dessert. How sweet! It was my first present of the day---a gofre. It’s pretty much just a Belgium waffle but it has chocolate on it and it’s AMAZING!! I was so happy…but then it got really good: The REAL parade.
The Carnaval itinerary said the Parade started at 10:30 so we hung out in the cold until then…they lied. It started at 11:30. Oh well, it was fun anyway. I kept on saying “Aww yay. I’m so excited!” and probably annoyed my friends with my enthusiasm. When it finally started, they had characters with huge heads, several percussion bands, samba dancers, little babies in fish costumes, jazz bands, roman catapults, jugglers, dolls, mops, Mexican dancers, flamenco dancers and flying candy. It was great, not to mention cold. When it finally ended I, in a blissful state, hopped on over to Brujas to say hello to my Spanish friends because, frankly, I miss them when I only get to see them 2 nights a week. Well, by then it was about 1:30am (the parade was very long) and…I don’t know how it happened but I ended up just staying at Brujas the entire night even after it closed—until 7am. I met 2 other people that had my same birthday and everyone sang to me in Spanish! It made me so very happy. I learned yesterday that Brandon & Sarah (my real bro/sis) sang to me from across the ocean at a random café in California. XD hooray!
Yeah…so 7am, that was really fun. It got to the point where I was just like “look guys, I can’t understand Spanish right now, I’m so zoned out.” So I walked home to the sound of birds chirping in the crisp morning air. Hehe. I got up at 12pm though, walked in the kitchen, and my madre said “I can’t believe you’re up! Only 5 hours of sleep…I just don’t understand” and I’m thinking “Lady, you don’t like when I sleep in, and you don’t like when I get up at a decent hour…what do you want?” But I’ve learned to just laugh it off.
I ended up going to the beach and talking with friends for a little bit, until I
found the cutest little program I ‘ve ever seen. It wasn’t a contest because there were no judges and it wasn’t a presentation because it wasn’t planned, but they had a youngster costume thing going on, where these little kids from toddlers to 8 year olds walked across a teeny platform to show everyone their costume. It was too cute. I was by myself but if I had someone there they would have heard my audible sighs and exclamations. My favorite: Pooh Bear.Okay: that night was the big night of the year: Carnaval. I can’t describe it fully. Let’s put it this way: costumes, teenagers, drunk, trash the city. There is no way I’m going to come to Spain and miss seeing the most important night of a young person’s life. Canalejas is the park near my house. They call it a park, but it’s really a wide grassy spot in between the one-way roads. We got there around 12:30 as is custom, and there were literally thousands of teenagers/younguns from 15 to 26 absolutely covering the area. I was wondering what age the parents let the kids go to Carnaval (b/c there’s no doubt the parents know what goes on there) but apparently the 15 year-olds get to party. Drinking under 18 is obviously illegal here, and so is public drinking, but Carnaval is the particular night in which the Police just turn their heads.
Absolutely ridiculous costumes. Swimsuits, Female products, pirates (like me), gynecologists, etc. The most popular for the guys was to dress like a woman. For real, everywhere I looked I saw sock-stuffed bras, blonde wigs, and miniskirts. One thing that is well-noted though, is that the girls don’t dress up nearly as revealing as they do in the U.S.—in general and during Carnaval. I met some girls who were Minnie Mice (or maybe Strawberry Shortcake) with little freckles and polka dots. It was so funny to see ridiculous costumes, but alas, I didn’t take many pictures. They were just too outrageous. By the end of the night—oh my gosh, it was absolutely trashed. It was probably enough to fill an entire dump truck with all those bottles and cups and paper bags.
Unfortunately, my night was a little boring. I started off with the Americans, but soon got bored of them (what can I say, I like the Spaniards!) so I set off trying to find my Spanish friends. The problem was, with so many people, it was hard to find them and when I set off for a bathroom break (the boys just peed wherever they wanted but the girls had to find a legit bathroom…stupid boys) I came back to find they had all disappeared. Still wanting to hang out with people, I wasted so much of my minutes calling people to find out where they were. I never found them, but I did meet 2 interesting fellows. I was walking along and saw this poor guy in a blonde wig bent over with a 2 liter coke in his hand…haha. I asked him if he was alright and we struck up a conversation. He was very funny because when his friend came along, he translated everything the friend said into English for me even though I told him I understood…haha. His name is David and his friend is Vicente. They invited me to their house---bwahahaha. No. Anyway, after much searching, I gave up on finding my other friends and went home. It was 8am. You cannot imagine the embarrassment to be walking through the streets of Alicante in a pirate costume at 8am. Those old ladies gave me some nasty looks. It’s a good thing I left my plastic sword behind. And if you’re wondering….I didn’t drink.
That was Carnaval! And the entire purpose was to have a party. Was it really only 8 days ago? Whew! In that case, this past week was nothing special. Thursday night I met with Lucas, my friend from the band and his 3 amigas. From them I learned that his band is doing a concert this Wednesday so I’m gonna skip chorus and go to that. FYI: chorus is a joke. We spent the entire 2 hours learning “I feel pretty” from West Side Story. I’m sorry, but harmony, especially in that song, is not that hard. I don’t think skipping it will put me behind at all.
Friday was Madrid! We left at 9am, arrived at 4-ish (I think). Coincidentally, we had the same bus driver as when we rode up to the caves/Guadalest and I got carsick and sat in the extra seat. So he recognized me and asked me if I was carsick this time. His name is Pascual and he’s uber nice. He was talking about how he drives us everywhere and how Madrid people (Madrilènes) are so much nicer than Valencia people (Valencianos). I said “So you like driving?” and he says, poor guy “Yeah, it’s been 2 months since my girlfriend of 2 years broke up with me…so I drive a lot.” Aww Pascual the bus driver. So nice.
Anyways, in Madrid the first thing we did was go to the Prado and see the classic art. I didn’t think I would like it because art doesn’t interest me that much, but I found myself fascinated by the artist’s interpretation of people’s expressions. Especially in the Jesus artwork where we saw what the artist thought the people felt like. It wasn’t an organized tour, so I walked the majority of it by myself at my own pace. It closed at 8, 5 of us went out to eat. After much searching we finally settled for a tapas place. Unfortunately, it was expensive: 11 euros for a drink and pork & rice that didn’t even fill me all the way. Oh well. That was the night!
Saturday at 8:30 I got up to a very early, but very yummy breakfast. Pascual (aww) drove us further into the city (walking distance but the group was too big to move
all at once) and dropped us off in front of *trumpet sounds* The Royal Palace!! We had our very own tour guide…and it was pretty dang amazing. Elaborately painted ceilings, hand-stitched wallpaper, intricate tile floors, gorgeous chandeliers. Whew! It was intense but no photos allowed. My favorite room was the throne room. The walls were a deep red with 6 stone statues of greek gods, and the ceiling was painted with some kind of roman mythology reference, with random gold statue people in the corners of the ceiling! Crazy.Later that day we went to El Retiro—the huge park in the center of the city. We didn’t walk very far into it, but we got to see a little lake where people rented rowboats and a huge statue for some random reason. That’s pretty much all there was there. It was nice to just go and be in actual nature, though. I got a sudden urge last night to go and sit somewhere where I can’t hear the whir of cars and can’t see the evidence of city lights in the night sky, and just be completely alone. So negotiating my urge with the real world, I went to the beach last night when I got back….yeah, not the same thing. It was really bright, lots of people, and not quiet at all. So much for that.
Anyway, our next stop was the Contemporary Art museum whose name I can’t recall. I’m not really into contemporary art although I tried my best to see the meaning behind a twisted piece of metal or better yet, a painting of a twisted piece of metal. But alas, I suffered in vain. What I did find interesting was the Picasso collection with the every famous masterpiece: Guernica. It was huge and me & my friend Nastya spent a good 10 minutes just standing and pondering. However, I was very very tired and went to the hotel to take a nap. Later that night I went out but felt a distinct difference between night life in Madrid versus Alicante. Although Madrid was more elegant and efficient, Alicante is approachable and laid back. I found myself genuinely missing the weekend before when I stayed up till the early morning just talking with my Spanish friends.
The next morning we all got up, put our bags on Pablo (the name of the bus) and did a walking tour of downtown Madrid. But it ended up being just walking because nobody paid attention to our tour guide, hehe. We visited El Rasco—the huge market with people packed in tight. I didn’t buy anything although I had my eye on the countless jewelry shops and indie-skirt stands. That was pretty much it. We hopped on Pablo and drove home. I’m pretty sure literally everyone except Pascual (aww) was asleep at one point.
Hooray! You are finally brought up to date on the happenings in my life!! Walking around Madrid, my friends kept on lamenting that they did not choose Madrid over Alicante. But, although Madrid is certainly beautiful and feels more European as far as architecture goes, I love Alicante just the same, and Madrid doesn’t interest me beyond a weekend trip. I guess it’s just that once I get to know people in a city, it’s my home forever, just like Raleigh and Durham. I love them not because of the cities themselves, but because of the people.
So overall I’m doing pretty good. They are offering scuba diving classes and I certainly want to take those! But I’m still having a lot of trouble with Spring Break plans. I have a trip to Italy down but there’s the first 12 days that are unaccounted for. And my madre conveniently told me last night that her family is going to London over Spring Break so pretty much: go on a trip or waste all my money buying food for myself anyway. One group of friends is getting a train pass with no set plans, another group is going to London to stay with friends, one girl is going HOME and coming back (that’s just stupid), and the rest of the people I frankly don’t care to spend my time with. Any suggestions?
BTW, I finally gave in and got a Tuenti—the Spanish version of facebook and am having a ball adding all of my Spanish friends to it. Hehe.
Let it be known that I truly and dearly miss all of you. I really do.
Love you
No comments:
Post a Comment