I went to carnaval yesterday and it was one of the craziest things I have ever done. We literally got on a bus at 10am yesterday morning in Granada and started our voyage to Cadiz, a coastal town about a 4 hour bus ride from Granada. Carnaval is a mixture of Mardi Gras and Halloween. People dress up in groups and go to Cadiz for basically a really big botellon (outdoor drinking party if you don't remember from last week). In lieu of the ridiculously high smoking rates in Spain and Europe (it literally seems like every other person smokes here) we decided to do an anti-smoking campaign, why not?
75 people boarded a double decker bus and headed off to Cadiz. I knew the majority of the people on the bus and the bus ride was literally half of the fun. We had music playing, contests, and a raffle drawing on our way there. The 5 of us won the costume contest! Impressive, I know. We won free Alhambra beer for having the best costumes. People were literally walking up to us saying what a good idea it was and how they were going to dress as cigarettes next Halloween. When we were about an hour away from Cadiz there was a raffle, the bus company was giving away t-shirts, beer, rum, and 4 lucky winners won free trips to either Seville or Valencia. I never win ANYTHING but I happened to be one of the 2 lucky winners to get a trip to Valencia. But of course, I can't even go. I am going to be in Rome the first weekend of Las Fallas Festival and in Ireland for my birthday the next weekend. That would happen to me...I'll probably never win anything else for the next 5 years. But I was nice enough to have them redraw another winner so that someone actually went, I should have bartered with someone for there t-shirt in exchange for the trip.
So we arrived in Cadiz around 4pm and immediately walked over to the beach. It was so pretty! The 5 of us decided it would be a great idea to get on this large rock structure and to take a picture in our costumes with the ocean in the background. So we all climbed up on top of this rock and were commenting on how beautiful the beach and ocean were when all of a sudden a wave literally crashes over us. Keep in mind, this rock is approximately 6 feet off the ground and I believe that was the only big wave of the day. We were all drenched and the rest of our entire group was cracking up at us. Everyone saw us! They were seriously like this made my night. It would happen to us...so as we are climbing down off the rock in our soaking wet clothes Kristen lost her grip and tumbled off the rock face-planting into the sand. Not only was she soaking wet but was then also covered in sand. Needless to say, this summed up the rest of our day. We sat out on the beach for a little while longer, trying to dry off by the sun and then we went to where the real party was. There were 100s and 100s of people all dressed in costumes drinking in front of, of course, a cathedral. The night was so much fun but it was definitely one of the longest days/nights I have ever experienced. I woke up at 8:30 Saturday morning, got to Cadiz at 4, and we didn't leave Cadiz until 6am the next morning. Needless to say, it has been a pretty unproductive days. I doubt I would ever go to carnaval again but it was a lot of fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment