Where to begin explaining?
The tale which continually pops into my head is the story about the umbrella.
After a night of revelry and Carnaval induced fun, I woke up the next morning with an umbrella in my bag that said "Brasil" on it. There are many surprising situations I've faced in my life, but in 6:30 am post-party mode I could only stare at this plastic toy umbrella for about ten minutes and ask myself...
Did it rain last night? Why on earth do I have an umbrella in my purse? Where did it come from?
Luckily post-hot chocolate I remembered, but this is a boring story and I prefer the confusion about umbrellas astray in one's reticule.
The whole last weekend was CARNAVAL. If you don't know what Carnaval is, I suggest you educate yourself with a quick internet search, align it with the terms "Fat Tuesday" or "Mardi Gras" or visit the wonderful cities of Sitges, Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans or Venice. If you are super intense, you can go to Uruguay, where they celebrate for forty days (after three I'm ready for a year of rest... there is only so much confetti, cross-dressing and samba one's costumed self can handle).
In Barcelona, we don't really do much for it, as far as I can tell. Instead, everyone takes the trains to the small towns where people go potty for this traditionally catholic holiday. The devout go to church, the fanatical go to Sitges.
I wrote a list for myself to remember what to talk about whenever I found time for this blog post, but my 5am, sleepy self decided that to prevent those sitting next to me from reading my notes, I would write in backwards cursive... in french, spanish and the bits of portuguese I've picked up. Multilingualism ftw...
What can be made out by the most astute of eyes is the following list of costumes...
-Frenchmen (from Lille) cross dressed as what appears to be Cruella De Ville
-devils
-angels
-an incredibly ugly cupid (favorite is the side note *he really needs those arrows*)
-cruise boat captains (Costa Concordia anyone?)
-several popes and their dutiful nuns (overheard: "would you like to count my rosary?")
-lots and lots of animals (cats *so uncreative*, sheep, sheep, goats, cows, smurfs (??), a blueberry, and a herd of men dressed in anatomically correct costumes). Yes, most of those are not animals.
And no, that was not "politically correct costumes."
I was also offered a drink of dubious nature by a witch. When I told her no thanks, and "poco a poco", she replied with, "es Carnaval! Mucho a mucho!"
Stolen but quality one-liners, at your service.
A very heartening side of this festival which I haven't yet expounded upon was the respect and safety I felt. Yes, I was amongst thousands of tipsy people in crazy costumes, grooving to samba and reggaeton (shout out to Santorum... "it was groovy.") . But the overall air was one of fiesta, not of purposeful stalking for prey in the shadowy lights of a discoteca. When I was approached to dance with people, I could say no and my answer was respected, often with gallantry. Try the same thing in a disco and it is a silver lined invite to Sir Alarming to TRY HARDER.
Other than attending crazy festivals, I have been cultivating my studious side by giggling louder than prescribed in libraries (Dorothy Parker and spanish comics...), my masochistic side (why did I decide to take the "lost and confused through sketchy neighborhoods" route??) and my sleepy side.
Boa noite and I leave you with a quote, which I was told by my profesora.
"Hay que tener amigos, incluso en el infierno."
Luckily this isn't hell, and my friends are AWESOME!
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