Carnaval

Last night I went to Carnaval in Cádiz, Spain. Carnaval is best described as a mix between Halloween and Mardi Gras, but this description does not even begin to explain the festivity. Carnaval takes place all over the world from different places in Spain to Brazi, where I believe it is most famous. Anyway, I went to Carnaval in Cádiz, which is on the southern end of Spain and is famous for their festival. I signed up with Discover Sevilla, a local company that takes "extranjeros" (foreigners) on trips and to festivals such as Carnaval.


The day before I left,  I went shopping with a few of my friends to get our costumes. We weren't looking to spend too much money, so we went to a lot of cheap stores to try and find accessories we could throw together to make costumes! I ended up buying cheetah print leggings, a cheetah tail, cheetah headband, and my favorite part, cheetah print earrings. On the night of Carnaval we all got ready and made our way to where the buses were picking us up. We luckily got on the first bus and were on our way. The night started out with our Spanish bus "guide" telling us we could call him "Party Jesus." That was an interesting start of the evening.

Once we got out of the bus we walked around Cádiz from one plaza to the next taking in the thousands of costumes and talking to random people. We ended up at the main plaza where the cathedral stands and made our way to the top of the cathedral stairs and stared out at the crowd of around 300,000 people. The costumes were so interesting. People go all out in Spain and it was amazing to see the types of costumes that are allowed here. Costumes people wear here are not socially acceptable in The United States. I saw people dressed up as "Chinos" (Chinese people) and "African people." There were also lots of fake guns and people dressed up as "American Revolutionary War soldiers."

  

Later in the evening we walked down to the ocean, walked on a boardwalk, and hung out on the rocks on the beach. It was definitely a little cold, but it was a very fun and surreal experience to be walking around on the beaches of Spain in Halloween costumes.

 

At 3am we loaded the busses back to Sevilla. We were very glad to have a seat to sit on the first bus back, because we were all exhausted, but the night as a whole was amazing and as cliche as it sounds a once in a lifetime experience!