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!
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