El Carnaval en Cadiz!

El Carnaval en Cadiz is said to be the world's "third largest Carnival celebration (after Rio de Janeiro and Trinidad)". Many of my friends and I went with a student travel group for the night to partake in el carnaval last Saturday; it is essentially a crazy halloween party in the streets. Everyone wears ridiculous (in good or sometimes bad ways) costumes, walks around, drinks and most likely approaches and meets new people. Let's just say that I told two people that night (as well as the night before at a bar) that I wanted them to be my new intercambio(s) since I didn't like mine! 

Some of the ridiculous costumes included armies of soldiers (literally enough to be an army.. almost. haha), flocks of chicken, waddles (?) of penguins (which I got pictures with!), the midget guy from saw, and probably anything you could think of. I dressed up as a snow leopard, wearing a leopard print dress and black ears, leopard print tights that Carmen was nice enough to give to me, and finally, I asked Molly to help me paint a mask on my face that looked leopard print. Maeve dressed up as a hillbilly, missing tooth and all! (She used eyeliner to black one out) Most of my other friends just threw things together by getting a mask, wig and some crazy outfit to wear. The only "requirement" is to not go in normal/"street" clothes...

There are several vendors as you walk around, including fried food (not too typical in Spain... usually) and even vendors for beer and shots. While most people talk about the performances that occur during Carnaval if you go to a website/description of it, we unfortunately didn't come across any of those (unless I just don't remember them! which I don't think I was THAT drunk)... We think that we weren't in the right area of the city. We did walk through many alleys and smaller streets that smelled of pee though (all the little streets basically become everyone's bathrooms when Carnaval is going on... I guess it's basically like using a real bathroom here, though, since there's barely ever any toilet paper or soap!)

While you can now assume that I was drinking, at some point I must have also managed to fall and give myself a nasty bruise/cut on my ankle and also very unfortunately broke my camera. Due to my clumsiness, these pictures that I post will probably have to be the last ones for awhile. We leave for Morocco tomorrow morning, and I resorted to buying a disposable camera in one of the "chino" shops, as we call them, to use this weekend (and I will hopefully ask someone to take pictures for me on their camera as well). 

my mask!

My friend Ellie and I on the bus ride there (she is the girl I just met that is in a different program but also lives in our building)

some of the vendors

Tara and I

A bunch of random people we met

The group

I managed to find a drag queen

 

 

 

Some penguins!

The one thing that sucked about this trip is that when Maeve and I got to the meeting point for the bus to Cadiz, I had realized that I forgot my wristband to get onto the bus. I was freaking out. I thought that I wasn't going to be allowed to go on the trip. But, when I got to the front of the line, I was told that I had to wait until the last bus. (I was so confused, because they had a list of all our names, and I had proof of I.D. with me!) Maeve and a few other people I was with decided to get on the bus even though I said that I was told I had to wait... I was pretty angry, and still think it was rude (especially considering the fact that they took our alcohol that we bought to share with them). The only person that was nice enough to stay back with me was my "new" friend, Ellie. It all ended up working out fine, we got on a bus and got to Cadiz and had plenty of time to see the craziness that is Carnaval (I just wish the guy hadn't lied to me and told me it would only be 15 mins until the last bus... we waited for over an hour! which would have been enough time to go back and get my wristband!) Oh well... what can I say, typical Kara, to forget something important, right?