Carnaval!

I am back from Carnaval in Cádiz! It was a lot of fun. Basically, Carnaval is a week long celebration involving costumes and performances in celebration of lent arriving. We went with Forocio tours because they provided transportation, breakfast and a hotel. However, if I had to do it over again I wouldn't go with a tour. The reasons: 1) I could have actually spent less money if we had planned it sooner, but by the time we decided all the hotels/hostals were booked. 2) we barely spoke Spanish except at night when we were out. It was annoying. 3) our hotel was a 40 minutes drive away from the festivities! 4) I didn't even get to see the parades during the day!

It was still pretty cheap, but I really wanted to see the parades during the day. The problem was our hotel was 40 minutes away and the bus they provided didn't leave until 9:30pm. So we would had to take the train which was inconvenient. That aside, it was still a fun experience.

On Saturday we woke up really late from being out the night before. Friday night was calm because Carnaval doesn't officially start until Saturday but there was still people dressed in costumes. We were right by the beach, so even though it was cold we all went to the beach and hung out. Shae and I spotted a store with some soccer balls for sale so we ran over and bought one. We had a little pick-up game on the beach. It felt so good to play!!!!

Shae and I messing around playing soccer

Then, that night we got all dressed up in our costumes. Shae, Jess, and I were flappers. We were driven to the center and let out to roam the streets with the rest of Cádiz. It was basically a big street party with a food, drinks, and a stage with performers. The entire town was packed. It looked like Halloween.

Some of the group in costume on the ride to Cádiz

Speaking with Southern Spaniards is very difficult because their accent is different than Madrileños. As our teacher says, they swallow their words. Therefore, they annunciate less. I was still able to get by, but it was nice to come back to Madrid and be able to understand a lot more! And being back in my room was nice.

On the metro ride back from where the charter bus dropped us off, these three Americans got pickpocketed on the bus. All of a sudden, a man yelled "POLICIA," but it didn't looked like anything was going on. Then, I saw a woman hitting the same man until the doors opened and she ran off. The man and the two women he was with yelled to stop her and that she stole their money. It was then I realized the man had been pickpocketed.

Rule #1 of Europe: NEVER keep anything of value in your pockets or purses/bags without a zipper.

I felt bad for them, but I can't believe they would be careless enough to do that. It freaked me out a bit. Thankfully my stop wasn't too far away so I was home soon after.