Carnaval

This weekend was Carnaval in Cadiz!

I started out this weekend with a trip to the palacio de congresos in La Linea, where I watched the finals of the singing groups that perform for the best/wittiest songs and performances. The emphasis for carnaval in Cadiz is wit and innuendo, every group writing their own songs and performances laced with political satire and dirty sex jokes. The more obvious (and better enunciated) I was able to understand. But even for Spanish people a lot of it is lost, as you can imagine when you are listening to 25 people sing quickly you can't really understand every word. The visuals are entertaining as well: kitschy costumes, gaudy makeup and people everywhere.



Every year there is a contest to see which group is the best- I went and saw the finals of La Linea's contest. It started at 10 and I left and left at 2am, which is an hour and a half before it ended. Spaniards know how to party.



A little anecdote that describes many a situation here-we agreed to meet at the palacio at 10, so I got there at 10.03, slightly worried about being late, but there was no sign of them. After 5 minutes I called my friend Reme, and she told me 'oh we are leaving right now, sorry sorry, see you in 10.' 25 minutes later they showed up. For some reason I can't ever trust my logical knowledge that people don't show up right at the appointed hour here. Thus, I rush and then wait. I've taken to calling it 'guiri time.' (Guiri being the slang term Spaniard use to talk about foreigners)

On Saturday I woke up to several emails informing me about a medical situation back at home (another one! my family is trying to stress me out!) and I decided I wasn't up to the planned day trip/hike up Gibraltar with a group of people I didn't know that well, (speaking in Spanish all day when you are feeling emotionally fragile...meh)-so I called and cancelled, but when they heard how upset I was they came over immediately and gave me hugs and I had sweet texts from all my friends here all day. I woke up my very hungover brother at 5 in the morning and he was a total sweetheart about it. The silver lining of being far away from your family when stupid things happen is that you get shown how much people care about you where you are. There are so many good people in the world! Go humanity!

That evening I went out and La Linea was bumping, people dressed up everywhere, reminding me a lot of a European Halloween, both adults are in the central plaza, with the children playing soccer and adults drinking and listening to the singing groups. Sunday I went to Cadiz with the teachers, for big league carnaval-more people, more decorations, more groups, better costumes, better performances. Drinking in the streets, street bar/restaurants set up, costumes and kazoos galore for sale-very jolly and very fun. I was happy to see some women's groups there-in La Linea it was all men who sang and performed. We returned late Sunday night, all of us looking forward to class the next morning...it makes me wonder what teacher world was like for the teachers at my high school-how often did they come to school hungover? Never. Duh. They lived at the school and didn't drink or smoke because you just say no.

Outside right now La Linea is a dishwasher. I am finally over my flu from last week (it was sunny all week when I was dying in bed) and now I want to get back to my marathon training and it is pouring and humid and windy. My life is so so hard, I can practically see my mom playing the world's tiniest violin for me.

More picture time!

I've been a busy bee!

So much to tell!

First things first: I am famous. I show up for a good 2.5 seconds in the background of Pesadilla en la Cocina... check out the moments between 2:08 and 2:20 in the third section and you can see my marvelous profile. The rest you can ignore, its not important.

http://www.lasexta.com/videos/pesadilla-en-la-cocina/2013-enero-27-2013012500028.html

This weekend I went on a grand adventure to Alhama de Granada. Before you think it, no I am not forgetting the 'bra', Alhama is different from the Alhambra, the famous castle in Granada capital. Alama is a white washed town tucked into the mountains between Malaga and Grenada. On the way in you can see the Sierra Nevada to the Northeast, and the hills are covered with grapevines, olive trees and almond trees, which are just starting to flower.

This second picture isn't that stellar but you can see the sun setting on the hills outside of the town which was beautiful

The town, like most here in on the old continent, is very old. They have found 'prehistoric remains' there and the Romans were definitely there, as proved by some crumbling arches, bridges and aqueduct systems. The Romans were followed by the Moors, which is where its name today comes from: al hammam in arabic are arabic baths and in Alhama there are thermal pools.

The river is cold water and the pools to the right have varying temperatures. Apparently during the day it is mostly tourists that use them, or old people treating rheumatism etc. The people of Alhama go at night, bringing candles and a date. Very stinky (sulphur...) but lots of romance points for sure!

There were two reasons for our trek to Alhama, the first being that it is my friend Paqui's hometown and we went and stayed at her parents' house. That meant realllllly good food and top treatment from Spanish mom. We had a full spread for breakfast, and lunch the next day was homemade sausages, chicken soup, salad with olives they picked and wine that they made. I forgot to mention that they make their own wine-her brother and her dad have a bodega in the basement of their house. We ended up buying 10 bottles of wine from them, which meant heading down to the basement (three of the four of us couldn't enter the bodega because we were on our period and if we entered, superstition says the wine goes bad)to fill up the bottles with a siphon. That was followed with corking the bottles and I got to put their sticker labels on!

That is her dad and their dog, Bobby. Bobby and I are best friends. We've promised to write.

The second reason we went to Alhama was the First Annual Wine Festival! As there are many local bodegas like the one Paqui's family runs, they started a festival. The thirsty visitors (ie me) pay 3 euros and they get a hand made painted ceramic cup that you can then fill up as many times as you want to...needless to say that within a few hours there were more than a handful of veeeerrry cheerful people in the square. They also had paella, sausage and cheese plates for sale. I spent the afternoon drinking and eating and meeting approximately a bajillion people.

I should also add that at the same time they were celebrating the Candelaria-a celebration where they light campfires on the side of the street. I didn't really get a good reason for why they celebrate it-wikipedia is giving me a variety of reasons-the arrival of the black madonna, the pagan celebration of the middle of the winter, the 40th day after Jesus was born and the purification ritual that goes with it...so one of those. It was nice smelling campfire smoke all day though, and walking past all the fires and warming my hands. It was cold up in the mountains! Upper 30s! Brrr. Also they always put up swings! Big swings! Swings that go between the balconies on either side of the street. Swings between two telephone pole like posts in the central plaza. Obviously I went on the swing multiple times. Weeee!!

Look at the pretty pictures!

The weekend was also for all intents and purposes an intensive language boot camp. I spoke only Spanish from Friday night when we left to Sunday night when we returned, with no internet access. Needless to say my brain was melting out my ears. I am sure my Spanish improved-as my Dad said to me, I am putting in my 10,000 hours to get to mastery-but I am not satisfied, which I am sure is a good thing and the reason my Spanish has come as far as it has. Oh well, step by step!

Being cut off from internet and my 'home' here in Linea served to make me feel quite homesick. Especially because the weekend was about going back to Paqui's home, meeting her old friends and her parents and being involved in the town's traditions. Absolutely a wonderful experience and I feel very lucky to have been taken along on the trip, but I couldn't help but think of my own lovely home and family and girlfriend and traditions and food and rhythms and language...I am so grateful for my experiences here, and I am soaking up every minute of it. But my, my city's filthy. PNW I'll be back soon.