Carnaval was...

Saturday night sure was... "interesting". I guess I should say things were slightly unhinged, but that implies lots of things happened that I can´t really go into much detail about, so I´ll just stick to saying things were "interesting." Besides, it would be impolite to discuss in earnest some of the activities I witnessed some of my peers from the program partaking in. I don´t even want to talk about some of the crap the Spaniards were getting into.

I, myself, managed to maintain a rather high level of sobriety (for no reason in particular), but maybe that´s why so many things I saw last night seemed so much more crazy. Things started relatively mild, with a couple stages setup on Las Ramblas featuring some bad, but festive music. People were milling about seeming to have a good time, but things maintained a decently family-oriented atmosphere. However, as the night progressed the streets seemed to descend into a thick haze of alcohol-induced sleaze.

Most of the time (with certain exceptions), I think I dislike events where huge masses of people are getting extremely inebriated at once. I came up with a basic idea of why people seem to operate at their poorest and most selfish when under the influence of large amounts of alcohol. I am always reminded of this when lots of people around me are a lot drunker than I am, because I see a lot of sketchy behavior at once. Obviously, as we drink, more and more of our basic mental and motor functions break down, making it more difficult to perform basic tasks. As a result, we´re forced to focus more of our energy towards standing upright, keeping our eyes open, talking coherently, etc., while everything else (remembering to zip up our fly, paying for a drink, watching out for our friends) is relegated to our drunk auto-pilot program, whose effectiveness also happens to depend on how much booze is in our blood. Ultimately, this means we become pretty selfish creatures when we´re a few too many deep, mostly as an act of instinctual self-preservation. The consequences of these "survival skills" can be seen socially in a myriad of ways. This can be played out a whole lot further, and I could give lots of examples (especially from last night), but I´m just trying to get my basic point across. So, for the most part, last night wasn´t a sour experience per se, but I guess I wasn´t in the right "frame-of-mind" to not notice how slimy things were looking at times.

Anyway

People in Spain always go out with their big group of friends. I don´t know if you can call it an intesified form of the "clique" system, but people here seem to hold fast to one set of friends and these friends do absolutely everything together. So while it shouldn´t be so surprising that these groups all dress in identical costumes when they go out for Carnival, it still was... at least until after the 5th set of slutty nurses walked by. Usually, for Halloween in the States, people pride themselves on how original or creative they can be. Here, it seems like they should hand out awards for the most like-minded folks. It was easy to spot groups of Americans, because everybody in the crowd would be sporting a different costume. Even when we´re dressed up to fit in, we still stick out like sore thumbs.

One other thing I appreciated seeing was how there were large portable tents set up in various locations near the festivities where volunteers were stationed to attend to people in immediate need of care (i.e. getting their stomachs pumped). These stations were notoriusly not-busy which is definitely A Good Thing, but I think it´s comforting that the people are well looked after if they go a little overboard. Despite the overwhelming atmosphere of chaos, there was still safety nets available.

Other than that, there´s surprisingly little else (of a more general nature) to discuss. An imagination is only required if you wish to envision the juicier details of a publically condoned, all-night boozefest in the streets. This truly does make me wonder what the Fogueres de Sant Joan is like (the HUGE multi-day festival in Alicante that takes place after I leave in June). I suppose I´ll get a sample of a real Spanish festival when I spend a night in Valencia for Las Fallas in a few weeks, but it would be cool to experience an entire weeklong one.

Times about at the internet cafe, so I´m off to do some homework and get ready for a fun week of classes.

Chau