Tribute to Carnaval

CARNAVAL:

Wikipedia says: a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events of which are usually during February.

Brittany says: 2-3 weeks when you can walk down the street in the costume of your choice and expect no social reprimand. You can also expect other perks like random performances throughout the city, kiddie rides set up in Casco Viejo, your host mom making amazing “tostadas” reserved especially for this holiday (think French toast, but before dipping your bread in egg, you soak it in a mixture of cream, sugar, cinnamon and a splash of brandy. YUM.), an AWESOME parade, and an all-out fiesta throughout España.

My first encounter with Carnaval was during my walk home in Deusto, a section of Bilbao that my neighborhood is in. Upon exiting a coffee shop, I was almost ran over by a 40 year-old chicken-man pushing his daughter (dressed in full clown attire) in a stroller. Ummm…what just happened? And so commenced Carnavale. Or so I thought.

As it turned out, Deusto just likes to get the party started early. The REAL Carnaval wasn’t until the following weekend, but Deusto was filled with music, festivities, and lots of costumes for the whole weekend. Then the real thing came. It’s hard to explain, but Carnaval is a lot like Halloween in that nobody’s really quite sure what they’re celebrating and they all dress up. I wasn’t going to splurge on a costume, but after several fervent urges from my host sister, I picked up some cheap necessities (black mask and hat + black dress from home + boots + fake gun = instant bandit/Zorroish character/we never really decided exactly what I was) and headed out on the town.

Let’s see if I can describe this properly. I arrived to Casco Viejo to find the old cobblestone streets teeming with costumed Spaniards. There were several notable differences between the United States Halloween:

1.) Age. Old and young are celebrating together late into the night. And the older ones aren’t just the creepy old people either (which I just learned the Spanish slang term for – “Viejo verde!”)
2.) Modesty. Girls don’t pull a Karen (Mean Girls. If you didn’t already laugh, click the name. K thanks) but are fully clothed. A refreshing distinction.
3.) Frickin’ weird costumes! I saw an obscene amount of chickens, Mario characters, about a dozen Buzz Lightyears, an airplane, and a lot of giant renditions of popular candy bars.
4.) Endurance. This thing is literally dragged on for two weeks, to the point where you don’t bat an eye when you see a crowd of 40-year-old women dressed as purple birds out to coffee on Tuesday evening. What a wonderful country.

On Saturday night, the main night of Carnaval, I danced the night away and had a blast. I even ended up on a stage once, right next to a crowd of unfriendly girls dressed as traffic cones. That should illustrate the randomness of Carnaval for you! But alas, there is more.

The following evening was one of the most peculiar occurrences: El Entierro de la Sardina. Direct translation: Funeral of the Sardine. What it really means: Funeral of the Sardine. Yep, that’s right. The entire city gets together for a fake funeral of a nonexistent fish, complete with “real” monks and an opera singer to properly mourn the passing of this little marine animal. It’s supposed to symbolize the “death” of Carnaval until the coming year, and the object varies depending on the region of Spain. Because Bilbao is so close to the sea, they use a fish. For example, Burgos (a province over) holds the funeral for a mosquito. So strange!

At the end of the funeral, they set fire to a giant paper-mache sardine, complete with little fireworks, and proceed to grill hundreds of whole sardines for the spectators. For the first and last time in my life, I ate a freshly roasted WHOLE fish. Worried about the bones? So was I. But don’t worry, after decapitating my sardine (by the instruction of Irati – this was not her first time), I extracted the entire spine and dug in. Not the ideal cuisine, but how can you NOT participate in something like that?

I can’t decide if I was more amazed at my ability to accomplish the task, or at the ease with which the 5- and 6-year-olds around me were doing the same. Apparently, this is pretty normal eating in the port city of Bilbao. That was the moment I realized that my two American friends and I were drawing quite the crowd of spectators ourselves. People thought it was pretty funny how much we were struggling and squirming at the prospect of eating a freshly cooked sardine.

And thus ended Carnaval. Not.

Just like Deusto, another area of Bilbao decided one weekend wasn’t enough – and the festivities resumed in Al Gorta the following weekend. The weather was much better and so even MORE people were in the streets – this little corner of Spain was literally overtaken by crazy costumed people, and I happily joined the crowd. Besides almost getting killed on the metro because of the throngs of people trying to squeeze into train cars (worse than Washington DC on the 4th of July, no joke!), the night was a success.

The third Sunday since my initial exposure, I finally laid Carnaval to rest. Bilbao followed in suit, and everyone I encountered on the street Monday was dressed, once again, in normal attire. The kiddie rides stuck around for a few more days, as if to wean the city off the vacation it had just taken from normal life. I'm not one to ride those things, but for whatever reason I appreciated their prolonged presence. Same with the churro stands.

Ah, how I love cultural immersion.