¡CARNAVAL!

So, I haven't updated in a while.  Sorry about that!  My life has been pretty routine lately, no traveling or big festivals, just living my average Spanish life (which is still great by the way) until this past weekend!

The past two weeks have been Carnavales in Spain!  For those of you who don't know, Carnavales (or just Carnival in English) is two weeks of celebration to kick off the lenten season!  I guess the easiest way to describe it to Americans is Halloween meets Mardi Gras.  Carnaval involves costumes, parades and lots of music!  My town, Almería, celebrated it on a small scale, like the majority of Spain.  There was a parade on the weekend, and costumes here and there in the streets, but nothing major.  However, there are two cities in Spain that celebrate Carnavales on a much larger scale.  The biggest celebration is in Tenerife on the Canary Islands.  They celebrate Carnaval more like Brazil with beauty pageants, drag shows, and tons of concerts.  Although it would be amazing to go to Tenerife, the flights are pretty expensive so it was out of the question.  So, we decided to go to the second biggest Carnaval celebration (conveniently located on mainland Spain) in Cádiz.

Parade in Cádiz!

I went to Cádiz with a student group from Almería and we had a blast!  Cádiz is located on the opposite side of Andalucia from Almeria; it's a costal city on the Atlantic Ocean.  It was about a 6-7 hour bus trip, so it was pretty long.  Lucky for me, I slept the entire way there and pack.  For those of you who know me well, that shouldn't surprise you ;)  Anyway, we were only in Cádiz for one night (from 5pm to 5am) but it was well worth the trip!  Absolutely everyone was dressed up in costumes of all sorts!  Also, the city was alive with Carnaval spirit with everything from parades and confetti in the streets to Spaniards singing songs in the streets!  It was a once in a lifetime experience, and I'm glad I got to participate!  My three friends and I dressed up as superheros.  We called ourselves "The Erasmusibles" which is a play on "The Incredibles."  Erasmus is the student group we went to Cádiz with, so everyone seemed to find our costumes pretty clever.  I've added some pictures so you can see for yourself.  Enjoy!