Hello, hello, hello! It has been a while but this is Michael, your friendly neighborhood Warp Zone Nerd (name that reference!)...in Spain. This past week I celebrated a fantastic fiesta/holiday/excuse to wear a costume, party and not remember what happend the next day/whatever called Carnival. Carnival is a widely (outside of America) popular and celebrated day/...whatever. During it people wear costumes, go on pardes, dance, sing, party, etc. The best part, here in Spain at least, is that we get days off for it! It would be as if work and schools gave you Monday and Tuesday off for Halloween (mas o menos [look it up]). Now, as promised to our seemingly current #1 twitter fan @CaligulaVersus, I will write a blog about it (I know it has been a while, thank Calig for this one and then follow her on twitter.
Now, everyone in Spain, whether or not they celebrate it (and there are some areas that don´t celebrate it at all), seems to appreciate Carnival because of the days off it provides. However, when I asked my students why this festivity exists the best, and only, answers I got were ´´because it´s fun´´ and ´´tradition.´´ Okay, it is a tradition, but why, ¿why is it a tradition (Sorry all, I´m on a Spanish keybºard again and I çan´t h·e·l·p¬hªving €xtrá sígñs¡)?
Well, to get a clue we should look at the meaning behind Carnival and Mardi Gras, that´s right Mardi Gras. Based off of what I read, they had similar beginnings (if you want specific histories on the holidays and how they are celebrated [especially for Mardi Gras in New Orleans] I highly recommend looking them up. It is very interesting). One translation for Carnival comes from the latin worlds Carne Val, meaning Farewell to Meat. Mardi Gras, is actually French for Fat Tuesday. Any ideas as to why it is called this yet? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller? (¡Name that reference! [come on, this is an easy one]).
Well, the holiday that comes after these two celebrated celebrations is none other than Lent (or for our Spanish viewers, cuaresma). This holiday lasts 40 days. It used to be that for those 40 days carnivorous activities were not allowed, a.k.a. no meat. During Lent people began to realize that they were very bad at planning out anything or having forethought. They ended up with a great deal of meat left over that would go bad and needed to be thown out. So let´s go over the possible solutions to this problem.
1) Buy a planner or Outlook (we should get endorsements) and schedule out when to eat what.
B) Donate any extra food you have to those who are not well off and could use the food.
C) Throw a huge party where we over indulge in food, drink and other activities.
4) B & C
E) All of the above.
Well, humanity went with option (3), ´´party like there´s no tomorrow.´´ (As a side note I always thought that phrase should be ´´party like there won´t be a today.´´ My reasoning for this is that if you party enough, when you wake up the next day, you won´t remember the day before [and you may not want to remember it].) They started having huge celebrations where they would eat meat and other items that they would not be able to have during the next 40 days. Eventually this tradition spread and continued. It then evolved and became the holidays appropriately known as Farewell to Meat (Carnival) and Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras).
Now that the history lesson is over let me tell you a little about my Carnival. While we get the days off for it, Carnival is not celebrated in my town, Plasencia. In fact, I found it surprising that it seemed more people dressed up for Halloween, which is not even celebrated in Spain, than Carnival. So, I road tripped (8 hours on two buses) over to Cádiz. Carnival in Cádiz is so popular it has its own Wikipedia page (oh yeah, I went there [look it up]). Here everyone seemed to be in some sort of costume. There were costumes from Minney Mouse to Alien (from Aliens) to cross dressers, and they all were having a blast. There was a parade and many of singers. In Cádiz they have contests where people make there own songs (usually political) and sing them. Some costumes can be about current events as well. For example (refer to Wiki), apparently during the bird flu there were many bird costumes. This year there were octopus costumes to remember the sadly deseased Paul the Octopus who predicted most of the winners for the World Cup (Go Spain, we won!). One of my favorite moments was when my new Malaysian friends and I were looking for the beach and we randomly passed on the street three guys dressed up as girls singing and dancing to choreographed show tunes translated to Spanish and trying to prove to everyone that they were better than The Temptations (and they were d@mñ good).
I had gone back to Seville afterwords and spent another two days there, which I may write about another day. That being said I will briefly talk about my hostal experience in Seville. If you every get a chance to stay at an Oasis Backpackers´ Paradise (Paradise or Inn or something else, the last word varies), I highly recommend it. It is an incredible place. The people who work their are volunteers who get room and board (so they want to be there). They have great service, a great bar/restaurant, fantastically cheep and delicious food, as well as a free/donation based walking tour (ask for Becky in Seville). In 24 hours I became friends with people from Spain, Malaysia, France, America, Germany, Australia, Austria and England. It was an incredible experience and I highly recommend it.
Alright all. That is it from me for today. I hope you have learned something and have enjoyed this. Next time you are partying for Mardi Gras or Carnival remember the history of the day, and remember me. I´ll see you next time.
nerd on,
Michael
PS You get WZN Points for replying to the post as well as naming the references
PPS Bonus references. Where is ´´festivous for the rest of us´´ from?
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