Saturday, February 21, 2009
After a 45 minute walk to Hipercor, we got on the bus for Cadiz! There were lots of crazy people and that should've given us a clue what we were getting ourselves into. We rode for about 40 minutes then stopped for AN HOUR AND 10 MINUTES. I have no idea what we were waiting for but the other 4 busses were there too. So we finally got to Cadiz and as soon as we stepped off the bus, the craziness began. (Actually, that's a lie - it started when we got to the bus stop). Everyone was in costumes, we were really happy to have our masks because we definitely would've been out of place without them - everyone was totally over the top. I'd say the most common ones were cows and pirates but I definitely saw everything in between. Group costumes were a common theme, one of my favorites was a bunch of Where's Waldo people. Also, showers? Hard to explain, but pretty creative. We wandered around the city for a while, along the boardwalk and down to the beach where a path led out to an old castle. After that we went to this really really pretty cathedral. Above every street lights were hung in different designs and confetti was all over the ground. We went from plaza to plaza all night checking out the costumes, talking to people, looking at the lights, and listening to the chirrigotas (groups of men who sing late in the night criticizing everything from pop culture to the government. They are really good because they practice for weeks and have competitions for the best groups). We even ran into quite a few people we knew, including a bunch of people from our program. In the plazas, especially in front of the cathedral it was so packed, people were literally shoulder to shoulder for the majority of the night. We didn't have a hostel reserved for the night because everyone (other students, professors, Veronica, and even Julia) told us not to. People definitely just stay up all night long, but we couldn't do it. For about 2 hours we layed on the beach and tried to get some rest even though it was freezing cold. It would've been nice to have a place to stay but everywhere was full and our bus left early in the morning so it probably wouldn't have been worth it. Anyway, the night was absolute madness and I'm glad I experienced it but it's something I definitely will not do again.
