Cádiz, Carnival, and Chaos

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This past Saturday, API took us on our first excursion out of Sevilla, to Cádiz, a coastal city on the Atlantic. So I mean, I know I've been throwing the words "amazing," "beautiful," "phenomenal," and "spectacular," around a lot, but I mean really, how else would you describe the sunset over that city?

On the way, we made a stop at the Guiterrez Colosia Winery for an informative, but boring tour of the cellars and a free tasting of around five or six different varieties. Free drinks were nice, particularly since we were knocking them back before noon. The wines were pretty diesel, coming in at 15-22% alcohol by volume, and they were not skimping on the size of the samples. We left Sevilla so early that many of us didn’t have any breakfast, so we got a nice little late morning buzz going.

Some at home may wonder why I am dressed like a Frenchman. Your curiosity is understood; have patience, I’m getting there…

API took us to Cádiz on this particular weekend to check out one of the more significant celebrations over the course of the Spanish year, Carnival (pronounced car-NEE-vaul). Carnival can described as Mardi Gras meets Halloween meets St. Patty’s Day. It was truly that out of control. The Frenchman outfit was my costume, and it was a huge hit. You may also wonder why I am the only one in my costume already. Well, I felt kinda ridiculous with the stache, so I decided it would be easier if I just had the costume on to drive the point home. I’m not trying to boast or anything, but after the tour of the winery, I had to pose for separate pictures with like a dozen or so ladies. To capture the authentic French look, the mustache was a must, and I wasn’t settling for no penciled-in bullshit. I initially grew out a beard and then just sculpted in a few days before. Many people hated it, but I assured them it would be worth it once they saw there was rhyme to my reason.

I was very pleased with my mustache, and though I have since shaved it, I would like to dedicate its memory to my father circa the 1980’s and Uncle Gerard circa several decades.

Cádiz was gorgeous. Located on a peninsula jutting out in the Atlantic, it was difficult to look in any direction and not take a scenic picture. Interestingly enough, Cádiz was the first city founded on the Iberian Peninsula by Phoenician traders during the 12^th century B.C. Of course, nothing of that age remains intact, but nonetheless I found that fact pretty cool.

It definitely had the same sort of smaller European urban feel to it as Toledo or select parts of Sevilla, but on this particular day, there was added bustle and energy. We could feel that this Carnival thing was big, but we had only but an inkling of how big. During the day, the festivities were mostly geared toward the kids – clowns, balloons, confetti, shitty horns/toys, etc. Leading up to nightfall, the demographic and the festivities would shift dramatically…

We were supposed to tour the whole city, but halfway through, we came to a beach right next to one of the main plazas, and it was clear to our program directors that no one was particularly interested in any more walking. Man, I love Southern Spanish weather. Here we are in early February, 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. For the next few hours, we all just kicked back, relaxed, and caught some rays. The atmosphere was soothing – everyone (mostly people my age and a bunch of 20-somethings) relaxing, drinking, smoking, and prepping themselves for a marathon evening.

By the time we left the beach, it was nearly time to go. Our last stop was at the cathedral, a very unique-looking structure, since at some point (either the 13^th/14^th century), part was destroyed, so they rebuilt up and over the original structure with a different material. It clashed a bit, but after getting a better look, I decided it did in fact work (really, I can’t emphasize this enough, if you ever find yourself overseas in a historically Catholic state, i.e. Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, and select regions of Germany – go see some cathedrals!).

As a group, we had two options, we could either hop back on the API bus to Sevilla, or we could stay in Cádiz for the “fiesta por todas calles” [party throughout all the streets] which our directors did not give us many details on, but I think everyone at least thought they had an idea of what it entailed. For my part, I would have said that I did at the time, but in retrospect I really didn’t…

Before the API crew shipped off for Sevilla, our director led us to an ice cream store across the plaza from the cathedral. When I got closer, I was shocked to see it was a Ben & Jerry’s. I don’t think twice now when I see a McDonald’s or a Starbuck’s here, but I was sure that those boys from Vermont ran a super-crunchy eco-conscious business and thus would be weary of social and environmental impacts of globalization. In any event, it was hilarious watching Americans try to order the ice cream. Ben & Jerry’s is known for giving hip titles to their flavors such as Cherry Garcia (the Grateful Dead!), Phish Food (another jam band!), and One Sweet Whirled (a Dave Matthews Band song reference), all of which weren’t translated for the Spanish, and hence remained in their original names. However, unless you can say the English word with enough of a Spanish accent, the scooper will not understand you; a predicament indeed. I ordered Chunky Monkey, which didn’t have enough vowel sounds for me to fake the accent well (Spainards absolutely butcher our consonants; it was not even worth trying to imagine how they would say “Chunky Monkey”). I ended up just having to point at it in the chest.

While we were enjoying our ice cream, a crowd of costumed hooligans (I’m not talking about kids that play street hockey on Bianca Road) started to assemble on the steps of the cathedral, banging drums, singing songs, and in general getting rowdy. It was only around 6pm by this point, but the kegs of Cruzcampo were stacked high everywhere and flowing hard. It was an appropriate foreshadowing of what was to come.

Cruzcampo, which translates literally to “cross countryside,” is the Budweiser of Spain, only much shittier than Bud. A Cruzcampo sign hangs from perhaps 70% of the bars and cafes here, its everywhere. I would characterize it as a mix of Milwaukee’s Best, Busch Diesel, and Schlitz. Please don’t ever mix those beers to find out what I mean, I really only chose those three to underscore my dislike and approximate the consistency of the brew.

While a good portion of the group got onto the bus to go home, I tracked down some ladies that stayed at the beach and intended to stay the evening. I found them on their way to the train station to buy a ticket back to Sevilla, which I bought as well for a 5am train. However, I found myself waiting around for them to change into their costumes and do their makeup. I had been in costume and character all day, so that was a drag, but once we got our act together, we made our way back towards the center at the perfect time. Crowds of people seemed to pour into the city from every direction, and making our way back towards the plaza by the cathedral, there were probably at least three times the number of people congregating. This picture came later in the evening, but you get the idea, it was nuts.

The costumes were impressive. The Spanish really don’t mess around, and I think I saw a few dozen groups that could school any group of Americans in a group costume contest. The group costume was really a big theme of the evening, and I was repeatedly asked where my French brethren were. My typical response to this was “al norte!” (to the north!) in a poorly imitated French accent. Below is a picture of a group of what I believe were gynecologists with a friend of mine...not sure what Captain Planet's role was there. It was one of the funnier and/or more disturbing groups I came across (though there were many people dressed as priests, popes, and nuns that were doing some pretty naughty things on the steps of the cathedral...don't tell Aunt Doris).

I lost the group I was with originally with around 10pm, but that was okay, because I made a bunch of Spanish friends. I was able to dynamite that red, white, and blue bubble sky-high. I'm pretty sure I didn't speak any English for the rest of the night. The girls thought my French character was funny, and the guys wanted to know how to get with American girls. At first, some were taken aback by my shouts and slurs in at least what I thought at the time sounded like a French accent. I mean from what I was told, anything goes at Carnival, but you really don’t see that many Americans dressed as Frenchman in the midst of a Spanish festival.

I think the details of the evening are best left unsaid here, but suffice it to say that I met a lot of people, drank a healthy amount of wine, spoke a lot of Spanish, and appeared in many pictures I will never see with people I will probably never run into again.

Looking back, I have absolutely no conception of time over the course of the night. I remember going different places around the city with a few different people, but I wasn’t checking the time because I put my phone in my backpack. I never completely blacked out, but I was “caught up in the moment” until I had a “where am I, and what am I doing?” moment. That came while I was in the middle of a park square banging away on a drum surrounded by Spainards singing and dancing in time with my beat. I took a look at my cell phone time, and you can imagine my surprise to learn that it was 7am. I had originally intended to catch the 5am train, and fortunately, I was able to find my way to the train station alone to catch an 8am train. I was also lucky to have bought my ticket the night before, because there were hundreds of people in line at the ticket booth.

By the time I got home, it was 10:30am and I still had yet to get a wink of sleep. I ended up sleeping from then until 3:30pm, when I got up just to have some lunch then went right back to bed. I finally awoke around 7:30pm, and immediately started to get ready to go out with the boys to the Irish pub for the Superbowl. The game didn’t even start until around 12:30am Spain time, so we had a lot of time to kill. My voice was shot from yelling so much the night before, and I was in a general state of disorientation from my sleeping habits. After two pints of Guinness, I decided to just stick to water.

The game didn’t end until after 4am here, and throughout I felt like something wasn’t right. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that European broadcasts don’t show the U.S. commercials. Not being able to watch the Pats with my family and friends just wasn’t the same. Without the old “one, two, three” hand claps, or my dad yelling Manning insults, or Brandy barking, or the boys crammed on the couch, or my mom’s chicken wings, it was hard to feel comfortable. It made me realize how far from home I really was. At the end, I was very tired and very depressed. Now, I have a cold, which seemed inevitable given the nature of the weekend. This weekend, I’m off for Morocco, so hopefully I can take my mind off it. You win some and you lose some. On the bright side, I had an incredible time at Carnival, and to be honest, I’m still enjoying those first three Superbowl wins.