¡CARNAVAL!

Carnaval is something a little bit foreign to us Americans. When I hear the word I think of Rio de Janeiro and wild samba and women wearing more feathers than clothing. This is only the most well known Carnaval celebration. In Spain every city, town, and village pretty much has some sort of festivity or another. In some places it lasts as long as a month! Here in Asturias it is a week long, with each of the three largest cities, Avilés, Gijón, and Oviedo, each hosting a celebration on a different day.

Carnaval is a mostly Catholic celebration taking place right before the period of Lent (Cuaresma in Spanish) when people are to fast and repent during the 40 days leading up to Easter. It is a time when all the rules of good behavior are suspended and excess is allowed. It also marks the end of winter and welcomes in the spring (first blossoms on the trees sighted today, 23 February!). Everybody dresses up in disguises and there are parades and everyone is more festive. As far as the U.S. is concerned, Louisiana, being a former French colony and thus Catholic, is the only place I know of that has this sort of celebration. Here in Asturias there's nothing as raucous or debaucherous as Mardi Gras, but it's the same inspiration.

The party began Saturday in Avilés. After weeks of flip-flopping, I finally made up my mind to dress as a died-in-the-wool rootin' tootin' cowboy. Ever the procrastinator, I began my costume search Friday afternoon. Seeing as how I grew up in a pretty rural part of Utah, I personally know cowboys. They were my fellow classmates for most of my life and even had their own clique (or gang even) in high school. So I have a pretty good idea what I would need to wear to look as authentic as possible. As cruel fate would have it, accoutrements such as a belt buckle, cowboy boots, and a hat, ever so essential to the cowboy look, are completely unavailable here. In Utah I could find a warehouse of cowboy paraphernalia at bargain-basement prices in less time than it takes my Spanish friends to translate my exceedingly verbose blog. Here in Spain, though, cowboys are little more than a rumor. After scouring some discount retail stores, every Chinese Bazaar within 10 minutes of my house (and that's well over 10 stores, each full of all the crap you never wanted in the world) and the thrift store, I began to realize that boots and buckles were not so easy to come by.

A bit defeated, I picked up a plastic gun and holster at Yi Wan Long Bazar, and resigned myself to the pre-packaged, Spaghetti Western-style, costume shop cowboy hat. I made the belt buckle out of a tacky metal picture frame from the Chinese bazaar, and ultimately gave up on the boots. For the remainder I had only to look in my closet, which did make me think, "So, do I already dress like a cowboy?..."


It definitely wasn't what I had hoped for in a costume. A cowboy without cowboy boots? It's a contradiction in terms. All in all it was a pretty second-rate result, but such is a procrastinator's life. But, then again, while other people may have had better cowboy costumes, none of them could talk like a cowboy or sing "Down in the Valley" or line dance, so I added my own authenticity.

The bus ride to Avilés was a very interesting 30 minutes.

This looks like snow, but it is in fact FOAM. The main draw of Avilés is that in the afternoon the firefighters shoot foam from hoses at the hordes of people in rain gear. Even children participate, and the foam can get up to 3 ft (1 m) high! Sadly, we only got there in time to see the aftermath, but as you can see, there is still a good 6 inches in some places.

This photo was taken around midnight, which is still quite early in Spain so there were adorable children running around. I saw entire families dressed as bears, clowns, birds, Indians, Mexicans . . .

There was a large stage with music blasting, but it was pretty unremarkable in itself. There was this lady dancing on stage and I thought, how nice they got some local girl to dance, she's not bad. Come to find out it's the lead singer of DJ Sammy (don't worry if you haven't heard of them . . .)

My friend Rabea and I.

It was really fun to be in a new city, out on the town with my friends. It was pretty cold, high 30's (~3˚C), but luckily my costume was in itself quite warm with the coat, hat, bandanna and gloves.

After we'd gotten our fill of Avilés we stopped at one of the many Turkish Kebap restaurants and ate a "midnight" snack of the most delicious dürüm I have ever tasted. They're the closest thing to burritos I can find here (that is available at the wee hours anyway). Fat and happy, we grabbed the bus back to Oviedo and fell asleep.


If that weren't enough excitement, the following Monday was fiesta in Gijón. I decided to just reuse the costume, since it would be new to the people in Gijón, at least. With a veritable herd of friends in tow, we departed Oviedo once again.

The people I spent much of the night with.

My friend Paula (lion) watches as her sister María pours cider (sidra). This is a very Asturian sight, I'm glad I finally got a picture! It is always poured from way up high (even indoors in restaurants, leading to rather sticky floors here...), which helps mix it or something, and you drink just a little bit, very quickly, then throw out the dregs. It's pretty tasty, but the most appealing thing is really the uniqueness of the whole process.

Some San Fermines (running of the bulls) and their botellón. They dressed a shopping cart up as a bull as well!

Legos

Jaime being a bit mad.


Here's a video of the plaza, with some very Spanish sights.

This bar is like a cave.

Priceless photo; From left, new friend Hiroto, Jaime, and me.

Cecilia (right) and her friend, now in a less cave-like locale.
Hiroto makes an awesome Japanese photo face.

Jaime, María, and Eimear; resting our weary legs. This was followed by a most delicious Kebap (noticing a pattern?). After spreading the wonders of the "Second-Wind Dance", which Sadie taught me back in Salt Lake, we were ready for more.

We don't take too kindly ta yer folk 'round here.

After this though we were truly exhausted, so headed back to the bus station. To our great grief, we learned that there would not be any buses back to Oviedo until 6:45 am!! As temperatures plunged, we searched desperately for someplace to wait out the next two hours. There were no cafés or even normal bars open at such hours, at least none nearby, so we were forced to huddle together like hobos on the hard concrete floor in front of the parked buses. To pass the time I sang patriotic songs and cowboy tunes with my English friends Moo and Jenny, which I'll admit must have looked quite insane, but, desperate times . . .

Gijón was a great time, all told. I loved everyone's costumes and all the fun places we went. I'd say it was even more fun than Avilés. The complete and total lack of organization, on the other hand, was anything but fun. I have this image, of a board meeting at ALSA, the bus company. They thought, "I've got it! We'll hire a mogollón of extra buses to bring the hundreds (thousands?) of people to Gijón!" then closed the books and went to take a siesta and/or drink some sidra... Maybe they thought we'd all want to stay til dawn? I mean, granted, it was Monday night, but it was also carnaval for goodness sake. It's just unfortunate that such a great Spanish celebration had to be tainted with the oh-so typical mess that is administration here. Oh well, you take the good with the bad and such is life.

The next day, in Gijón was another important part of the carnaval festivities: the Burial of the Sardine. This woman dresses up as a sardine and parties around town Monday, then Tuesday they ceremonially "bury" her at the beach, and señoras cry their eyes out.


And then it's the end of Carnaval. I, of course, was not about to get on another ALSA bus so quick, so I missed out. But it's an interesting bit of folklore.

What a minute? Did he say the end of Carnaval? Why yes, technically that should mark the beginning of Lent and giving up things that keep you from God et cetera. However, as a sure sign of the secular nature of this part of the world, Oviedo throws it's raucous Carnaval bash the first Saturday of Lent.

This fact inspired me to mix up my costume this time and be a sort of multi-denominational goodie goodie. It's mostly open to interpretation, I must admit (and very last minute).

Wicked part in the dead center of my hair? check. (Once again I already had most things, making me wonder about myself a little...)

Doing the make-up. Aren't his cuts frighteningly realistic?

Some of the gang ^__^

Now this next photo is extremely freaky, but also hilarious so I had to include it.





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... wait






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...

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! haha

Here you can see the mass of humanity,

in every corner,

in every direction.

Yeah, that's a girl Waldo painting a boy Waldo's lips.
It's Carnaval! Everything goes.

After getting seriously lost in a sea of people, I found some other friends.

After a while things did start to quiet down.

Until all that was left were a few especially die-hard revelers and lots of trash.

In short, it was an appropriately festive week and a half, and great to finally experience a sort of "typical Spanish holiday." And now I am definitely ready for a bit of the cuaresma spirit, I must say.

Until next time.