Carnaval

This weekend is the big Carnaval celebration across Spain. Carnaval is celebrated all over the world, but you might know it under a different name. In America we call it Mardi Gras. It's the celebration before Lent begins. Here in Spain, as well as many other places such as Italy and Brazil, people dress up in costumes and have a big festival in the middle of town. Here in Alicante, apparently they'll close down one of the main street blocks, Ramblas, and they set up two big stages for people to parade across and display their costumes.

One group of my friends is dressing up as 4 of the 5 Spice Girls. Personally, I hate dressing up. I dread Halloween. So I'll just wander the streets and hope nobody asks me, "Donde esta tu disfraz?" "Where's my costume? Oh, I left it back in America...."

Apparently, lots of boys dress up as girls, but not many girls dress up as boys. It's bound to be crazy. All this stuff happens on Saturday. There'll be lots of food booths and beverage booths. I hope there's a parade. I really like parades.

Fun fact: Carnaval = carne + vale. It means something along the lines of "no more meat for Lent."

Tomorrow, I'm going to the Archeological museum in town. I don't have classes on Fridays and the past few weeks I've traveled on Fridays so this is my first Friday in a while, that I've been in town.

Next week, I want to spend the weekend in Valencia. I'm not very good at getting people together. Well that's not true. I AM good at getting people together, but these people here aren't good at following through, at confirming plans. So I'll probably go alone. Which kinda stinks. But I want to go, and I'm not waiting for other people to say they'll come with. Maybe I'll just spend the night.

My friend, Jen, who's in the program here with me, said she and a couple people are planning on going to Mallorca in May. I'm really excited for that. It's on a Spanish island east of Spain. Should be a lot of fun.

My family gets here in two weeks!!

And I think I might have almost convinced my mom to come back to Spain in June to walk the Camino de Santiago with me. It's a religious pilgrimage. A group of people from my program are going in one week but they're charging WAY too much (~500 euros). I can probably do it for 300 euros. But the Camino is basically walking miles and miles and miles each day across northern Spain. It'll be hard but I don't care. I mean, I'm gonna do it with or without her, but with her would be really nice :) If you see her, convince her to go.

Speaking of saving money, let me tell you this. Armando took a group of student to Madrid in the beginning of February. They charged 200 euros and only provided breakfast. The cost covered a hotel and museum entrances for two nights. Two weeks later I went to Madrid for four nights and only spend ~180 euros. BAM! I beat them. Hence, it's not cost effective to travel with Armando, even though he's a great source of knowledge.

Well, that's it for now.

xoxo