Carnaval

This weekend I traveled south of Sevilla on Saturday night to Cádiz for their Carnaval celebrations.  I would describe Carnaval as a mixture of Mardi Gras and Madison Halloween.  It is absolutely mandatory that you wear a costume so it was a blast to see so many people dressed up.  Some costumes are meaningful (they have to do with current events), some people go in big groups with everyone in the same costume, and some are just colorful and crazy.  I went with the colorful and wore a polka dot dress and hat, with my hair in pigtails, and bright red cheeks and lips (my host mom would not let me leave the house before I painted my cheeks red, haha).  Carnaval is a 2-week, city-wide fiesta, but Saturday night was the biggest night for people to visit from other cities.  During the evenings each night, chirigotas perform in the Teatro Falla.  The chirigotas are witty and satiric groups that train the whole year for this competition.  What happens is they all dress up in identical costumes and perform a skit with popular songs.  The lyrics are changed to address politics, news stories, everyday circumstances, and other important things that have happened throughout the year in Spain.  This week at dinner we watched some of these chirigota performances at dinner, so I felt like I was preparing for the festival all week and was very excited to go.  It ended up being just as fun as I anticipated.  There were people in all of the streets and a ton in the central plaza.  We also spoke a lot of Spanish to people who like our costumes and ran into a bunch of other kids in our Sevilla program. Other than Carnaval, this weekend was dedicated to catching up on sleep and homework.  It's very sunny today, so after lunch I am going to go for a walk and take in the good weather.