A brief peek at carnaval in Cadiz

This past weekend we went down to check out the week long madri-gras-esque celebration of Carnaval in Cadiz. Cadiz appearently has the biggest and the best celebration in Andalucia, thus the logical place to go. There was some confusion as to when would be the best time for us to go and after getting advice from many different spanish sources we ended up going sunday afternoon because that was the best day to go see the "cultural stuff". (My intercambio Macarena had recommended that we go instead on Saturday night because that is when all the young people go out dresses up and party until the next morning, but this particular weekend calmer heads prevailed. haha i know, booo...)

Sunday evidently was the more family-orientated day of carnaval, as we were surrounded by so many adorable little babies in costume! (Mags managed to get a few pictures of the more adorable ones, they are linked to my picassa!) More family-oriented day, does in no way mean that partying of the grown-ups really stops. There was evidence everywhere that the partiers from the night before had done the event proud, and many of them at 2pm were crawling off to bed to rest for a few hours before doing it all again, but many were still going strong! Sundays main even was "Los coros", or choruses that compete before carnaval in a big 'theatrical espectacular'. The winners get to ride on floats pulled by tractors and sing their songs for the crowd. I was thinking alot about my dad watching the coros because although i did not understand all of the words, the coros basically sing very silly songs with light-hearted and low brow humor. Certian gestures were frequent and children and grandmas sang right along to silly songs about the follies of the town-idiot and this encounter with the town whore. All around good family fun. There was one group of old people in particular, i would say well into their 70s,about 10 of them, stinking DRUNK by 3pm, in these incredible matching go-go dancer costumes, singing, clapping and marching toward the festivities in a congo line. now THAT is the way to age.

We unfortunately did not have time to stay for the big parade and fireworks that night because they weren't until late and we needed to make the last train back to seville for work the next day, boo. on the train though, sitting righr behind us was a group of coro singers (all quite inebriated) who proceeded to sing all of their songs to the whole car. One of the pre-recs for being a member of a coro is you have to be a HUGE HAM so needless to say, they were QUITE amusing and we had literally a front-row seat. Mags has some video , which I will try to post here!

Here are some pics from Carnaval:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mclauerman/CarnavalCadiz


It is now Thursday, almost the weekend again! My weeks fly by now because of all of my classes I am pretty busy! I have also been trying to not get sick because nearly all of my fellow teachers are. I was thinking about going down to Cadiz again for another round of carnaval but I think my sinuses may prevent me from doing so.

also big news: JENNIFER GETS BACK TOMORROW!!! hooooray!

haha and because of that fact... we need to clean up the apartment!
hope everyone is well at home.
beso,
mc