22 February
On Friday, we went on a day trip to Cádiz, a city about an hour and a half away from Sevilla, right on the coast. My friend Ellen and I spoke Spanish the entire bus ride there, I was so proud of us! Our first stop was a wine cellar for a wine tasting of different types of wine/sherry made in Jerez (a town near Cádiz). It was interesting to hear about how the wine was made and to try all the different types of wine, but I don’t really like wine so it was kind of wasted on me! I did enjoy the free peanuts and snacks with the wine though haha. After that stop, we headed onto Cádiz to a beautiful little beach to spend the afternoon. I brought my bathing suit but didn’t end up swimming because it was a little cold with the wind blowing and the water was cold (well, not compared to New England water, but cold for Spain!) I walked around and enjoyed the sun, found some shells, and took a lot of pictures. We also walked through the town to get some ice cream and I had the best ice cream bar of my life. It was a very relaxing day and I couldn’t believe I was hanging out on a sunny beach in the middle of February!
The next day, Saturday, was Carnaval so we returned to Cadiz that night for a very different trip! I had spent most of Saturday making my costume (I actually had to sew!) My costume inspiration was these little gold lucky cats in the windows of a lot of the bazars here (little dollar stores usually owned by an asian family). You can see the pictures in the photo album of what the cat looks like and then what my costume looked like – it’s hard to explain! But I liked how my costume came out, I thought it was pretty creative – plus I was relatively warm for most of the night, unlike a lot of my friends! Carnaval is CRAZY. It is just a huge street party and absolutely everyone is wearing a costume and drinking. It’s like Halloween but with alcohol instead of candy and it’s pretty much all teenagers and adults. There were some amazing costumes and other really strange ones (a lot of cross-dressing men, even within my API group!). The best part is that even though there were a TON of people and there was no order or rules to anything, it was never scary or dangerous – there were no fights, nothing set on fire, no cars flipped over. Even though everyone was drunk and singing and acting crazy, no one was fighting or causing too much trouble. I wish I could say the same thing about events like this in the US, like when the red sox won the World Series! Overall it was a long night because there are sooo many people and it’s hard to stay in a group without losing people but it was so much fun to see everyone’s costumes and experience Carnaval – it was definitely a once in a lifetime chance and I’m very glad I went! I hope you enjoy the pictures – I think you will be able to appreciate my explanation better once you’ve seen them!
Expect another blog very soon about this past week when my family was here! As always, thanks for reading! <3
Great job on the costume! It must have been a lot of work.
ResponderEliminarI really want to try one of these ice cream bars that you are obsessed with.