Carnaval

So the 5 day celebration of Carnaval has come to end, and quite a celebration it was! The best way to describe it would have to be like Halloween for 5 days. Everyone just parties non stop, and everyone walks around the city dressed up basically from Thursday night until Wednesday. The great part about it was that when I say everybody, I really mean it. It's little kids, big kids, parents, teenagers, college students. Well I guess I didn't really see many elderly people dressed up...but I'm sure there were some with hats, masks, or a little something.

As previously mentioned we went out Thursday night after Kelsey's birthday dinner, and were surprised to see basically everyone in the gardens dressed up! Sorry if I'm repeating myself but some of my favorite costumes were a group of guys dressed as the toy soldiers from Toy Story, Mario Kart characters (cars included), American tourists, and a shockingly high percentage of guys dressed as women. We hadn't gotten our costumes ready for Thursday, but Saturday we spent the day preparing our pirate outfits. We had already bought the accessories: eye patch, bandanna-thingy, and a waist sarong with cold coins. On Saturday we finally decided to buy men's red t-shirts, and we cut them all up to layer them on top of a black tank-top. Although some people might have looked more piratey or sexy with their store bought costumes, I think our DIY outfits looked pretty stellar. I wish I had gotten a full body shot of Arinelli, Elena, and I but you'll have to deal with this 1 picture of Elena to get an idea of our costumes.
James' host family had gone away for the weekend and had given him permission to have people over, so we hung out there for a while. We had some drinks, listened to music, and then even got the grand honor of having James play the guitar for us. He even explored the realm of Bachata music, a typical genre of music stemming from the Dominican Republic. Of course Arinelli couldn't hold herself back and started on the lead vocals. We then headed out and spent the rest of the night dancing and singing. The three of us also became very easily amused by our little sarongs since they made a very fun jingling sound whenever we moved our hips. Our inner belly-dancers may have come out a few times during the night. Elena went back a little early, and James, Arinelli and I ended our night eating kebab sandwiches and french fries on a bench by the ocean. Not too bad. This is my life.

 

So this next day was this. It was a gorgeous, beautiful, amazing warm day so Arinelli, Elena and I headed off to the beach. Let me just say how nice it is to live in a city by the ocean. Even on days when it's not warm it's so nice to just be able to walk by the paseo maritimo and stare at the water and let yourself get by mesmerized by the waves. We ended up staying there for almost 2 hours just talking, listening to music, reading, and taking in the sun. I can't wait until it gets nice and warm like this (or warmer!) every day. If you need to find me, you know where I'll be!

That night we headed out to Santa Cristina where our friend Giselle lives, and also where the sunday funday party scene resides! That's right, in Spain there's even a place to get your drink-on on Sunday. Because of Semanta Santa we didn't have school, so Arinelli, Elena, James and I headed out there to go out and then have a little sleepover. It was fun to see some new places, and of course the costumes were great too. There were a group of spartans that kept showing up at every place we went. Let me note that while these spartans had a lot of accessories, they didn't have too much clothing on! The kicker was definitely their paint on 6 packs. They actually looked pretty realistic, maybe I'll have to try that this summer when I go to the beach. "Yeah it's weird! Those Spanish pastries just turn right into muscle and now I have a 6-pack!!" Do you think people will believe me?? Anyways, we got back to her house around 6, and everyone was starving. So I busted out my omelet making skills, I have to say, I think everyone was pretty impressed!

By Monday night we were all pretty exhausted (that might have been partly because I was getting sick) so we decided to lay low and just get dinner. It ended up being more expensive than planned (wamp wamp) but at least it tasted good! The next day I unfortunately woke up with a killer sore throat, that is still slightly persisting, but I do feel like I'm getting better and not worse, so that's good. All 6 of us walked around Tuesday because we heard that there were a lot of things going on during the day, including a parade. Unfortunately, either Spain's definition of "a lot of things" and "parade" are a little different, or we just never found them. We came upon a child's costume contest, and walked down a packed street of people who all seemed to be going in one direction, but never really came to anything. It was still fun though to be out, and see all the people in costumes. It was another gorgeous day, and we ended it checking out the sunset, and then grabbing a little tapa.

It was an end to a great weekend. Another great part about the weekend? Arinelli and I booked our trip for Semana Santa. While I had originally been planning on going to Ireland and Scotland, it just ended up being much too expensive and very difficult to travel there. So instead, the two of us are going to the Canary Islands!!! We'll just spend the time laying out on the beach, getting tan, and drinking some cocktails. Oh, and I'll be celebrating a little thing called my 21st BIRTHDAY!!! I'm so excited! It should be a lot of fun! What can I say? This is my life.

**Shout-outs of the post go to Audrey Gehring and Elizabeth Davin. These two lovely ladies were the people that I had been planning on visiting in Ireland and Scotland (respectively) and unfortunately due to stupid airplane carriers, it doesn't look like it'll be happening this year. Thankfully though, I'll be seeing Elizabeth in Barcelona in a couple weeks, and Audrey is actually coming to Coruña before we head out to Barcelona together!