"This drink is sweet like you, haw-ney"

After about 20 minutes of deliberation on the bus ride home, Alexandra and I were STILL unable to come up with an appropriate way (or any way at all) in which to begin our blog posts for the weekend. Please don’t judge us for being lame; you haven’t experienced Carnavales. Actually, I’m not sure if Carnvavales are even blog worthy. This event isn’t something one reads about in order to understand, but something one really must see first hand. This having been said, I’ll try, and most likely fail, to accurately explain my Saturday in Ciudad Rodrigo. Donning fairy wings, tiara, and a butterfly wand, I caught an early morning cab to the bus station along with my fellow fairy princesses (Allison and Colleen) and 80’s chic (Alexandra). Despite the slightly embarrassing entrance into the station, seeing no one else in costume, our spirits were high in anticipating the day. Megan, Sarah P., Kelsey, Will, Julian, Danny, and Thomas joined us soon after (but without costumes because they’re not half as fun or cultured as we are). We arrived in the old Roman city, Ciudad Rodrigo, at 10 am and jumped off the bus, anxious to discover what these festivals were actually about. As we followed the crowd up the main road, passing an array of carnival rides to our left, we were soon relieved to notice that we now blended with a variety of others in costume. Before long, we found our way to the main attraction, where an everyday street had been transformed into a sandy bull-fighting arena, surrounded by makeshift wooden stands. Asian people openly took pictures of us as if we were monuments on a sightseeing tour and a drunken man dressed as a rooster proposed to me, all before 10:15 am. This, I thought to myself, is going to be a great day! Everyone congregated in the ring to dance, sing, socialize, and drink (never too early in the day here, I guess). Alex, Colleen, and I quickly made friends with Edu, Natalio (who called me princesa all day…I like him), and several others, many of whom attend La Universidad de Salamanca as well! We ended up spending most of the day with them, forcing me to speak more Spanish than English. So great, even though they said we sounded like Mexicans (better than having an American accent I guess). We helped them with their Spanish and they helped us with our English. I have to say that after feeling extremely foreign and incompetent at the Spanish language on a daily basis, it felt pretty good being able to tease a few Spaniards trying to speak English. Down in the ring, one person in the crowd would start singing a song and immediately everyone else would join in. This happened all day with a seemingly endless plethora of these jovial tunes. In America, we have Yankee Doodle, and…? I only managed to learn the first two lines of one of the songs: “Con el agua, me pongo muy mala. Con el vino, sano yo marido.” I don’t feel the need to translate as it doesn’t make much sense anyways, but apparently it’s a very popular drinking song. What can I say, I’m like a toddler learning and repeating anything I hear the big Spanish kids saying. At 1 pm, the festivities began, starting with the running of the bulls. At this point, we were seated in the stands (still kind of shocked these didn’t collapse beneath us), where we watched people followed by the bulls flood into the ring from the street. Guay. For the next hour or so, the ring was open to anyone daring enough to provoke the bull and run away…not SO daring, if you ask me. However, Julian, Will, and Thomas all felt that they needed to prove their manhood and entered the ring. Pretty entertaining. The entire time I couldn’t help but think, “This would never happen in America!” In the states, they would make everyone sign release forms. And before climbing over the wall and into the arena, people would ask, “Does my insurance cover this? If not, I’m suing!” Personally, I much prefer the Spanish attitude.
Afterwards, we met up with several other members of our JMU group, who had gone of a different bus, and enjoyed our typical huge excursion lunches (thanks, madre!). We really do love our bocs (that's a Spanish abreve for bocadillo, or sandwich). 

Bull fight at 4:30! Alex, Colleen, our new amigos, and I had spent a little too much time fiesta-ing in the street before realizing that there was literally no more space in the stands! This is reallu saying something too since personal bubbles absolutely do not exist here. But being the stubborn and determined girl that I am, I somehow managed to squeeze my way into the standing section in time to see the first of the four bulls die. Yep, that was just about enough culture for me. As upsetting as it was to see the bull afterwards, the matador’s footwork and the way he twirled his red banner was really beautiful and cool to see. You can’t get much more Spanish than a bullfight!
Next, Colleen, Alex, and I went off on our own for a bit to do some mingling and exploring. It’s a wonderful thing to be a woman in Spain. You feel so beautiful all the time, even at times when you’re not. Never before have I walked down a street where men will look at you and shout, “Hola, guapa!” (Hey, beautiful!) Hehe well if you insist, sir. I give the credit to all my blonde friends with whom I stick very closely. An equally likely explanation for all the attention we received could have been the huge sparkling wings, or the tiaras we were wearing, go figure. I’m so glad we dressed up! Being so obviously American, we also invited shouts of, “Obama!” and “Ha-looo!” Only in Spain would I walk down a street with an open cup of beer, stopping only to see different people filling it up with some of their own drink. Thanks, guys, so kind of you to share. As 7:30pm (the time of our bus home) rolled around, Edu and Natalio tried to convince us to stay until Sunday morning with them. Apparently, the cool thing to do at Carnavales is to stay out all night partying and dancing and then leave in the morning. I wish I had the strength, but like I said, I’m super lame by Spain’s standards. We exchanged numbers, so hopefully we’ll see our friends back home in Sal sometime. It felt so good to get back, shower, change into my pajamas, and eat a big salad with egg, apples, cheese, and tomatoes for dinner (a little random, but delish). Allison and I, always craving a little American TV, watched one of my Seinfeld episodes and went to bed early. BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.
Sunday morning, I met Hannah at Plaza Gabriel y Galan at 11:45 to go to an Evangelical church (probably the only one in all of Sal) near the train station. Another thing I love about Spain: 12pm church services. As soon as we walked in, the greeters gave us each the “double-kiss,” wrote down my name as a newcomer, and welcomed us into a room of about one hundred others. All the pews were facing each other (Jo, the bible study leader was facing us), with the pastor in the center. This is such a perfect illustration of how social and community-based Spaniards are. The pastor gave a brief talk, which was followed by a time of sharing. Various members of the congregation would stand and share a prayer request, praise, or a passage that meant a lot to them, and then suggest a song for us to sing. I was thrilled to recognize a few of these tunes from home and to be singing them with Spanish lyrics. It was a really overwhelming experience to be praising God in a different language with these amazing people in a country I love so much. God is so much bigger than I ever make Him out to be. After this free time of sharing and singing, we took communion and had a baptism. Another thing I loved about this Spanish church was that the children were welcome there in the service. No one cared if a little boy was running down the isle, or a little girl was cooing and pulling her sister’s hair; no one was turning to look, hoping they would hurry outside to “deal with that situation.” Being a newcomer, the pastor called me out by name and publicly welcomed me…kind of embarrassing, but cute at the same time. Super guay. I only wish our group was planned to be in Salamanca more Sundays.
Once home, we enjoyed a siesta lunch of white bean soup, salmon, and of course bread and fruit (what’s this?? A healthy meal!?) No siesta nap for me today, just homework. Later, Allison and I met Thomas at the train station to use the internet. Back home, we had fried cheese empanadas, more salmon, and salad for dinner. We finished off the evening in Plaza G.G. where our group met to usher in Megan’s 21st birthday at midnight, yay!