Carnaval- A trip down into the rabbit hole.

Thanks to a bunch of plastic beads, Mardi Gras is known world-wide as the king of pre-Lenten festivals. But it's Latin cousin, Carnaval is also pretty sweet. Here in Spain each city has it's own unique festivities during the week before Ash Wednesday: parades, competitions, and of course parties in the streets. And all though it's really something you need to live through to understand, I'll try to paint a pretty word picture of the experience.

Costumes
One of the most well-known and important aspects of Carnaval is the costumes. While dressing up for Halloween is not such a big deal here in Spain, it's almost required for Carnaval. Some people just don pretty sequined and be-feathered masks, while others choose full body costumes.

Men dressed in white suits and black hats. With the tags still attached so they could return them.

sidenote: Apparently it is not mandatory to constantly wear your mask. There were quite a few times people (i.e. drunk boys) would ask me to take off my mask to see my face. I would say I couldn't. They would ask why. I would say because it was Carnaval. They would find this hilarious.

What's interesting is that most people dress-up in groups as a theme. Now while me and four other friends did dress up as the Spice Girls one Halloween, we never all dressed up (purposely) in the exact same costume. My current theory behind the collectivist costumes is that in a street filled with thousands of people it's much easier to keep track of all of your friends if they are all dressed as say, Santa Claus or inmates.

Parades
In the States parades tend to have this whimsical air to them: jolly balloons, people tossing candy from tissue covered floats, and smiling girls dancing to peppy marching band songs. In Madrid, the Carnaval parade had a slightly darker feel to it.

There's fire.

Giant creepy-ass puppets that lunge at the crowds.

Indecernible mythical creatures.

These guys.

And walking needles.

But the kids all love it.

Parties
One of the best Carnaval street parties happens in Cadiz, a town on a peninsula on the southwest coast. Before I arrived in Cadiz I was a little worried about what I'd find there, or more accurately not find. I'd tried researching what part of the city the party happened in, what time it started, if it actually went all night, etc. But I couldn't find a single website (although did google managed to turn up an itinerary from the 2010 festivities). So me and my friends just showed up and followed a group (dressed as Oreos) we hoped would lead us to the party.

We quickly found the people of Cadiz incredibly nice and welcoming. Everyone was more than happy to let a group of lost English speakers tag along as they walked, talked, and partied in the streets.

Us: Perdon, donde esta la fiesta?
Them: Por las calles. (in the streets)
Us: Si, pero donde?
Them: Vale, ven con nostros.

Rinse with wine and repeat till sunset.

K Learns Spanish: Lesson 14

mascara- mask

botellón- to drink in the street.

sidenote: it saddens me that Americans do not have a word for this concept.

merecer- to deserve

Te quiero mas que Taco Bell.

It's Valentine's my dears and surprisingly enough this perpetually single gal isn't hating the holiday this year. I don't know what it is, but talking to adolescents all week about love and hearing their doe-eyed conceptions of it is just to cute to make me all mopey. Love is one of those things that I like to think of as universal. So to see kids in Spain react in similar ways to kids in the USA, it gives me a kinda hope about that crazy little thing that makes the world go round.

This week I showed my older students clips from Valentine's Day. Probably about 70 students saw it and most reacted in very interesting, and similar ways.

First off apparently the best thing you can do for any student anywhere is give them a movie day. No matter the subject matter or language, if the lights go out they're quiet and happy.

Secondly no matter where you go, teenagers have hormones. Big old roaring ones. For those of you that have not seen Valentine's Day two of its stars are Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba. In the first scene of the movie the camera pans across a bed first revealing Ashton and then Jessica. Let me try and recreate the first five minutes of every class I had this week.

Me: Hi everyone. How are you today?
Class: mumble mumble murmur.
Me: This week is Valentine's Day. Who can tell me what Valentine's Day is about?
Class: mumble mumble love mumble.
Me: That's right, it's a celebration of love. So this week we're going to watch a movie-
Class: TOMA!!! VERDAD? PELI SI SI SI SI SI!
(note I did attempt to explain an activity about the movie during this outburst, but no one, not even me heard it.)
Roll Credits. Shot of Ashton
Females in the Class: OYE QUE GUAPO! Es Ashton Kutcher (mispronounced)!
(closest translation: OMG WHAT A HOTTIE! OMG IT'S ASHTON!)
Shot of Jessica Alba
Males in the Class: JODER!
(closest translations: OH SNAP! or DAMN GIRL!)

Side note: This is also evidence of the theory that people find the exotic attractive. While there are plenty of Americans that find Ashton and Jessica to be the epitome of hottness, none of them would say, when asked why do you think they're so attractive, "He/she is soooo American!"

There was also a clear belief in the innocence of love. If you haven't seen the movie there's a brief moment that shows two toddlers kissing. Of course any American woman would see that and gush all over the place. But here in Spain the response is the same. AWWWWWWWW!

Another similarity I found was unrequited love. Anyone that has seen his baby blues knows that Bradley Cooper is one fine piece of booty. Add to that a three piece suit and his character's irresistible charm and it's not surprise that all of my adolescent female students feel in love with him during the course of the movie. Only one heart breaking problem...

*******SPOILER ALERT*******

In Valentine's Day the big twist is that his character is gay. Cry with me and all of my Spanish alumnas now ladies. Seriously, I've never been asked por que?!? so many times in my life.

Speaking of gay, there is a line in the movie where Ashton Kutcher tells his best friend that her former boyfriend was obviously gay because he has a cat named Babs. This inevitably got a laugh from everyone of my students leading me to believe that Barbra Streisand has a huge following in Spain or that that word just elicits giggles from Spaniards. 

Unsurprisingly another similarity I discovered was the males attachment to their own and their sympathy towards others testicles. And further more the females' delight in hearing about said testicles being pulverized.

In the movie, Jennifer Garner discovers that Patrick Dempsey, her boyfriend, is a married man (Why McDreamy why?) After finding out where Dempsey and his wife will be eating their Valentine's dinner, she shows up, pretends to be their waitress and describes the chef special to them: a stinking, lying pig. Prepared by cutting of the testicles, pulverizing them, mixing them with arugula, sage, feta cheese, and shoving them, for lack of a better word, back up the pig's ass. Now I'm not exactly sure what the Spanish word for testicles is, but I'm guessing it's a very similar word. I have never seen so many boys sit so still and scared while so many girls righteously laugh.

And now I'd like to leave you with the cutest salute to love I encountered this week.After watching the movie I asked a group of 13 year olds if they had any questions. One girl asked me if I was in love. I told her that currently, no I was not. So she asked her main teacher, Patricia, if she was in love. The teacher, whose about 59, said yes, she'd been in love with the same man for about 40 years. The students then proceeded to ask the teacher all about her husband, their family, and their life together. Then as the class was leaving, one of my students stopped and said to me, "Don't worry Kristen (mispronounced), one day you'll have a love like Patricia." Too. Cute.


K Learns Spanish: Lesson 13

corazón- heart

cita- date

bombones- chocolates, as in the awesome boxed chocolates that are filled with a variety of loveliness.

flech- arrow

esperar- to hope or to wait.
side note: it's almost poetic that in Spanish these two ideas are the same word.