A Colorful Carnaval

While the nutty natives of St. Louis were celebrating Mardi Gras last week, I was in Madrid celebrating Carnaval.  Carnaval is sort of like Mardi Gras except everyone dresses up in Halloween costumes and there are no beads (or boobs).

Roommate Stephanie and me with our Carnaval masks!

Saturday began with a bang, we found a sushi restaurant! We were pretty excited. Afterwards we went to meet Guillermo, my roommate Stephanie's language exchange partner. We watched him order a cup of melted chocolate and proceed to pour an entire packet of sugar into it before drinking the whole thing. Crazy Spaniards. After sugar-ing up we walked to Parque del Retiro for the big Carnaval parade. We lined the streets and waited for it to begin, not really knowing what to expect. But we were not disappointed! There were so many people dressed in exquisite costumes and performing different dances and acrobatic feats. It was the perfect setting with the Puerta de Alcala lit up in the background, the sun setting, and all the lights and sounds of the parade. I love Saint Louis, but this parade was MUCH cooler.

One of the floats in the parade

 There were some pretty interesting parts of the parade, some of the highlights were the Bank of Spain handing out fake 100 dollar bills that said ¡Viva la crisis! (long live the crisis). That's a good one! My favorite group in the parade was a group of kids dressed up as priests and nuns. The clergy members were dancing to songs like "Everybody Dance Now" and "Cupid Shuffle" and other various Shakira songs and they had the whole routine choreographed! It was pretty funny. I tried to take a video on my camera but it ended up being mostly of the woman in front of me and her white fuzzy hat. Here is one from Youtube.

A handy Spanish saying I learned this week: when you are sharing an appetizer with friends and there is one left on the plate it is called "la verguenza" (which means shame or embarrassment) because everyone is too embarrassed to be the greedy one who takes the last bite! No verguenza here!

In other news, some very sad news, the body of an American student studying abroad was found in a river in Madrid this week. To all my friends studying abroad and those at home: please be safe!! Here is a link to the story.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/03/08/spain.missing.student/index.html?hpt=T2

I'm off to spend more time with my parents. They landed safely on Sunday and I have spent all week tiring them out and sightseeing. So far we have seen most of Madrid, Toledo, and El Escorial. Tonight we are going to see a flamenco show and tomorrow we are off to Barcelona for one last hoo-rah before they head home to the states.

Happy 21st birthday to my sister Maddie today!

¡Hasta la próxima!

Mis padres y yo fuimos a El Escorial para ver el monasterio. ¡Es enorme! Cuando estábamos comprando billetes, no podía creer la lista de construcciones en el mismo lugar. Incluye un palacio, una biblioteca, unos panteones, las tumbas, algunos museos de arte, la Basílica, las tapices, un museo de la construcción y muchos jardines. Fue extraordinario. Mi parte favorito son los jardines y las salas del palacio. Son muy diferentes del Palacio Real en Madrid. Había un cuarto con una vista magnifica de las montanas y el paisaje donde el rey y sus hijos andaban en las noches. Es una sala hermosísima pero es interesante que ellos no anduvieran afuera del palacio.