Carnaval began years ago, when people would dress up in order to disguise themselves from the wicked vampires that would try to hunt them down, and engage in very un-Catholic practices right before Lent ("Cuaresma").
K most of that is a joke; I have no idea why we celebrate Carnaval, but I do know a lot of it has to do with the same idea as "Fat Tuesday": engorging yourself on all the things you will be denied during the Lenten season.
Spain, however, removes the Lent part and adds more alcohol and lots of costumes. I felt underdressed- for someone who spent about $70 on her Halloween costume (after all, Halloween IS my favorite holiday), I feel like the 5 Euro mask I bought (add high heel boots, bikini top and matching purple sweater) didn't do the celebration justice. Just look at what other people wore!!! (and in the pic, you can see most of the central square and its insanity, SO many people (most of them drunk), SO much fun!)
The gorgeous girls wearing a pink feather boa and a pirate hat are friends from college; I was lucky enough to meet up with them in Cadiz!
The Three Musketeers and all of their friends were our dates (and in many cases our food sugar daddies) for the night...
My USAC (program) travel boys (apparently the fact that I call them "boys" when I need them makes me a maternal figure?). Epic costumes. Epic 20 minutes meet up (which was fine because I spent the next 4/5 days with 'em).
I have no idea who these people are, but they were staying at my hotel and were leaving as I was going in, so I asked for a pic. They're all like 40, 50 + and about to party until 6am. Got to admire their spunk ;)
The worst/potentially most hilariously memorable part was the weather. Cadiz is in the south of Spain, and home to the biggest carnaval on the mainland (Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, is actually bigger, but a program out of Madrid was offering hotel, bus, etc for 125Euro)
But while the weather on Friday night was fine, on Saturday (the real big party night) it started POURING at around 2am, so even though everyone stayed pretty close to the center, we were all huddled under little roofs, in bars, etc. And it just made it all the more hilariously insane.
Totally recommend it. I love dressing up. Should've gone much bigger, in hindsight. Though the mask adds a certain element of mystery, ¿si?
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