Carnaval in Cadiz. Last weekend I went to Carnaval in Cadiz. It was a very interesting experience. I would like to compare it to a carnival ride. Those ones that looks so fun from the ground and you see so many people getting on them. So you decide ohh lets go on the ride. Then you get on and you get sick from all the spinning and once the ride is over you think to yourself "boy I am never going to do that again." This is how I feel about Carnaval. Definately a one time experience. The day began at 12pm waiting for the buses to take us to Cadiz (4ish hour bus ride). I was dressed in my so called costume, consisting of a tutu and a black hat that had feathers on it. We got onto the bus after waiting a while and the journey began. I should have known from the start that it was not my cup of tea when a man came on the bus tossing condoms at everyone. But there was no getting off the bus now. I had already paid my 20 euro and I was going. So after a long bus ride that consisted of sleeping and then having a bus sick person sit next to me (the poor soul) we finally made it Cadiz. What a beautiful city, right on the beach. First thing right of the bus was to find a bathroom. Second sign that this was not going to be my favorite thing. A man was coming out of the women's bathroom. Much to my surprise. After the bathroom trip we headed to a wall by the beach, where we sat and enjoyed the sun and warmth and then the sunset. It was fun watching all the people dressed up in the most interesting costumes. The funniest of the night were these men dressed up as chicken breasts (aka chicken costumes with boobs). There was a lot of cross dressing happening, ohh the Spanish men. But it was quite amusing. So once the sunset we headed into the crowd and boy was there a crowd. There were people drinking everywhere. Including on the steps of the Cathedral (shouldn't that be a sacred place, apparently not for them). Drinking everywhere. It was crazy. After my friend were groped a couple times by men in the crowd (soooo gross) we headed to a restaraunt to eat. We ate at Foster's (yes I broke down and ate at an American place).
Once we were satisfied by burgers and nachos it was back into the crowd. By this time people were pretty drunk. There were people peeing in the streets (men and women), people puking in the streets, and drunk people stumbling everywhere. What a mess. At one point I had a man stop me in the street and show me a picture of a vagina on his phone (no I am not kidding, this really happened). I repeat ONE TIME EXPERIENCE. We broke through the crowd and stood on the steps of the Cathedral at one point. We met some British guys who were there getting their pilots license. We also met some Finnish girls. It was interesting to see that people came from all over to do this. The night kept dragging on. I was getting tired, but the bus wasn't going to pick us up until 6am. Blahhh. So we just kept walking. At one point while walking through the crowd this big group of Spanish men (obviously drunk) stopped me and started saying "Tu es blanca. Mala. Mala." (Which means "you are white. Bad. Bad.") Upon saying this they proceeded to grab my arm and pull me into their group. Luckily my friend yanked me away. After that point, I was ready to go home. But there was still about 4 hours left. So we walked. Then we finally sat down in a corner and curled into ball, because by this time the temperature had dropped significantly, and waited for the bus. The bus finally came, but to my dismay he couldn't stop on the street, the police kept telling him to go up farther. So we ran along side the bus until we finally were able to get on, but quickly. After what seemed like forever the bus finally left Cadiz. We made it home at 11am on Sunday. ONE TIME EXPERIENCE.
So after this interesting night in Cadiz I come home and must deal with other drama. Ohhh how life hits you in the face sometimes. Despite all of this I think to myself how lucky I am to be here in Granada and to see the beautiful mountain everyday.
Thankfully, once the week of classes started, things were looking up. On Thursday I took a trip to the Albayzin* with my Art and Architecture class. I love my professor. I even got to walk with my host mom to our meeting point because she had a volunteer appointment (Cuentas Cuento). She walked me to class and even talked to my professor like my own mother would. Saying how she wished that they could replicate me and how I was caring. It is so nice to have a mother while I am away from my real mother.
Another fun experience I had was yesterday. I took a day trip to one the Andalucia's provinces called Jaen. It was a random trip, but it turned out to be a lot of fun! We took a bus, which was only an hour ride. When we got there we were searching for a museum. We asked for directions a lot and these gentlemen told us the museum was closed. So we stopped looking for it and were going to go to the cathedral when we walked past the museum we were actually looking for and it was open!!! It ended up being a really cool museum, with a lot of historical artifacts. So after browsing the museum for a while we headed to a palace I had heard about online. We found the spot, but they were doing construction and it was to be closed for a whole entire year (that would never happen in the U.S.) So then we headed to go find the Cathedral once again. We passed by this cool church, which happened to have a historical archive in it, which happened to be having a art showing. Ohh the luck we had. The art collection was a compilation by Joseph Bau who was held in a Nazi camp during the Holocaust, but was saved by Schindler. The paintings were amazing. They had so much sadness and depth to them. After seeing the art we walked along the sidestreet to the Cathedral. It was so cool because this small street opened up to a plaza with a huge Cathedral. It was beautiful. Once we got our pictures of the Cathedral we headed to a park near the bus station to eat our lunch. Along the way we found a smaller park with a beautiful fountain. What are the chances, only in Spain. We decided to keep walking to the other park and it was even more beautiful and much a larger. We ate our lunch in the beautiful sunshine. It was so great. After that we headed back to the bus and headed home. It was a really great day trip!!!
Today was also another great day. I went and saw 101 Dalmations (in Spainish) with my neighborhood group and then we went out for tapas after. Then I came home and ate so more food. Once sufficiently stuffed, I headed out again to meet with my intercambio (spanish friend set up by IES) for the first time. She was really nice and even brought her friends along too!! It was cool because they are all studying interpretation so we spoke both Spanish and English together.
These days have been so amazing and I am going to try to live up the rest of the time that I have here!!
Below are some pictures from Cadiz and from my trip to Jaen. And a link to the gallery of the artist that we saw!!
http://www.josephbau.com/
Cathedral in Jaen
Park in Jaen where we at lunch!
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