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Monday, February 15, 2010

¡CARNAVAL!

This past weekend was Carnaval! We’re still not completely sure what it celebrates, specifically, but in general I think it is just celebrating the week before Ash Wednesday. Festivities started on Thursday, but I did see people dressed up on Wednesday. We didn’t do anything for Carnaval on Thursday, but some of us went to Enebro’s as usual in Polígono.

FRIDAY

Friday we had a trip to “El Escorial” which is actually a town called San Lorenzo de El Escorial. We toured the monastery located there which was really cool to see. It was a bit chilly though, since the monastery is simply a stone castle with no heating system. The church part of the monastery was probably my favorite, it is amazingly beautiful. In a 3 sided square surrounding the pulpit is the palace part of the monastery, where Felipe II lived. It’s is cleverly built so that both Felipe II and his wife could watch the priest during mass from their beds. I also really liked seeing the tombs, even if it was a bit creepy. The whole place is full of paintings and is really interesting. I would love to return and wander through the place by myself for hours, on a much warmer day of course. After the tour we ate “comida” (lunch is the small snack they eat at like 10 or 11 which includes coffee and a pastry or small sandwhich, comida is the huge dinner-type meal they eat at 1 or 2 or 3pm) at a restaurant nearby. We had pasta with a sweet tomato sauce, a huge slice of pork chop, and a crepe filled with some banana/cinnamon/something? sauce which was delicious!
FRIDAY NIGHT! = Carnaval in Polígono!

Brooke came over to my house to get ready since she lives in Buenavista (a different neighborhood of Toledo). She, Lis, and I were disco balls. How does one dress as a disco ball?? We bought silver sequin dresses which were on sale for 5 euros at Zara and paired them with huge silver earrings, a sparkly necklace, and lots of bangles. Brooke and I both decided to wear a black shirt/sweatshirt and two layers of leggings/pants/tights underneath our dresses since it was freeeeezing Friday night. Our outfit was completed with silver eye makeup and lots of glitter. Upon descending the stairs we got to present our costumes to my family. My host mom said “How pretty!! But, what are you?” I finally got a picture taken with most of my family, minus Olga since she was in her pajamas and refused to be in the picture (I’ll post a link to my Carnaval pictures later).

Carnaval in Polígono was located behind the library and consisted of a large stage with a live band. It was actually pretty sweet. There were drink stands surrounding the place, and millions of crazy costumes. We encountered a Pac-Man guy who went around saying “Guapa Guapa Guapa” constantly. That translates to “pretty girl” for those of you non-spanish speakers. He was hilarious and told us he’d be at Zocodover the next night, so we made plans to try to find him again on Saturday. Some of my other favorite costumes I saw included (and yes, I did take pictures of these) a mermaid (man) with a full, uncovered plastic chest, tons of chickens and tiny chicks, the characters of Grease, and the gingerbread people (who refused to take a picture!). Everyone here gets really into dressing up, and the cool thing to do is to plan to dress as a theme within your group of friends. On Wednesday night in Zocodover we saw a person dressed as Jesus, followed by his 12 disciples, complete with one of them splashing wine on the ground in front of Jesus’ feet. I tried a new Spanish drink tonight! It consisted of red wine and coca-cola, and was actually very good. This was also the first time I encountered Spaniards that actually danced! Oh, and another note: they have a hilarious song here about “las chinas” (Chinese women) and also they do a different chicken dance, which is much more fun than the one in the states!

SATURDAY

Today there was a parade at 5:30 in new Toledo. It was a lot of fun once it finally got to us, but I feel as though it just made me more confused about what Carnaval is celebrating. Apparently each neighborhood dresses up for the parade as a specific theme to represent themselves. I saw everything from a movie theater complete with tiny walking popcorns to Aztec dancers. I also heard the “Ding Dong Song” which is definitely not age-appropriate for the kids at the parade. Good thing it is in English, and I don’t think anyone there actually knew what it was saying…The parade went on forever, check out my pictures to see some of the highlights!

Saturday night!!
I went to Brooke’s after the parade where I got to meet her dog, Jack, her mom, María, and her sister, also María. We warmed up some paella (which was very good) and then her mom made us a salad…lol Well, she said she was making us a salad, and that we should get it out of the microwave once it was done. It turned out to be tomato slices covered with melted provolone-type cheese, which was actually delicious. I still find it hilarious that our ‘salad’ was made in the microwave though! After fruit for dessert we rushed to get ready and caught the buho bus at midnight to Zocodover. The same stage and band were at Zocodover as was in Polígono the night before, but there were tons of people shoved into the plaza. We pushed our way through the crowd, searching for someone we knew. We finally found some kids from our program and ended up standing right next to some older people (40s+) dressed as Indians, complete with a teepee set up, and smoking pot in their pipes… I find it really odd how they gather to celebrate here. Everyone just brings a bottle, mixers, and cups to the plaza or street where they are meeting and then sets it all down and forms a circle around their alcohol. It’s so different from the States I feel like. After dancing in the plaza we went to O’Briens bar to warm up for a bit. From there we returned to the plaza for a while. Once we were chilled again we went to our favorite discoteca, Camelot, and danced until we had to catch the bus at 3:30am.

I’m thinking that the United States really needs to find more reasons to throw weeklong fiestas like Carnaval!

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