The thing was, my principal aim was to incorporate my fur jacket into my costume for warmth come the night. This would be impossible as a flower, so for some reason – panic in the chino, the pressure of having 10 minutes shopping time – I decided to go as a dog. (this is not entirely unrelated to the flowers. The boy flatmate was going as the gardener. I would be his pet).
I wish I hadn’t gone as a dog. Because I didn’t really look like a dog. With my dog collar, and S&M leash, I kind of looked more like a goth, but in beige.
Anyway, re-re-wind, the day commences at 9 o’clock. Spanish Pastries. An error if ever there was one. Why is it only in France that they can make pastries? Spanish croissants have to be cut with a bread knife, and even then they retain their shape and taste of dried chip fat.
The coach ride is long, and they play 300. The film about the Spartans. They have nice bodies. When I am not looking at their bodies, I look out the window. The hills looks like Craig David’s scalp; braided into bushes.
Once in Cadiz, we paint ourselves. Unfortunately the brown paint, allocated to Doggy Rosa, does not look like face paint, it just looks like dirt. The flowers are great though, and we have a mariposa - a butterfly - which dances over the flowers, and which I, as a dog, try to attack.
In brief, I’m not sure what the premise of Cadiz Carneval is. I read about it on wikipedia, which promised me live music and comedy. This is not what there was. There is only one way to describe it: it is a massive, massive, MASSIVE piss up in front of the cathedral. A kind of “we’re taking your idea of wine at communion… and running with it. A very long way”. Super Sol the supermarket, in preparation, has got rid of its vegetable section to stock more alcohol. The day drink is teeth-melting tinto verano, and the night drink Ron. Ron: not the abbreviation of cool name Ronald, but rum. Amber, ethanol-y rum.
The costumes, however, are incredible. And a great gauge of the time. New this year: teams of Amy Winehouses, with shiny beehives and outsized syringes; spectres of the credit crunch (plastered with signs saying sale, discount, closing down); and the great man who came as Facebook. Look! There he is:
Timeless classics included homages to aforementioned wine god Don Simon and, of course, human sanitary towels, complete with blood and little black hairs. And they say chivalry is dead.
Shout out also to the 86-year-old lady who came dressed as a baby. In a diaper, with no tights. Having tried to speak to her, I’m not sure if she knew what she was doing or who she was, but nice effort anyway nanna!
Later, after sangria in the sun on the side of the sea, we eat patatas asadas. Baked potatoes. You choose what you put in, except you can’t have what you want which is obviously baked beans. I ask for a bit of everything. When the lady gets to the mushrooms, I guess from looking at them that they are from a tin.
“They are from a tin” I say to my friend.
“Mira,” he replies, “it all is”. And right he is: it is all from a tin. Carrot. Beetroot. HAM. And, this is the worse bit. Cheese. Tinned cheese. Oh no they did-en! Oh yes, yes they did.
As the night progresses, coherent bands of surgeons or slappers separate off into odd pairings. A school girl has shenanigans with priest on a bench (and she’s consenting!); Facebook looks like he might punch a dominatrix nun. Later, I see (a male, I think) Amy Winehouse pissing against a wall. It is all very confusing.
Definitely not confusing is how cold is it. By this point, I am wearing my tail as a scarf and have stuffed some of the flower’s cardboard leaves down my top because I have seen tramps use this nifty insulation technique.
Our bus isn’t until 8 in the morning, and, freezing and undrunk, we trudge the streets, which are wet with wee and beer. Finally we find a bar with soft square sofas. One person at a time dances, allowing the others a short nap. Dancing alone is never fun; when your friends are sleeping and you’re semi dressed as a dog, it is even worse.
The two hours between the shutting of said bed bar and the arrival of our bus home at 8 in the morning are two hours of my life I will never have back again, and never want back again. We buy Spanish omelette sandwiches to hold against our central organs if nothing else. We huddle. We consider weeing on each other for temporary heat. (No one mentioned this, but I know we were all thinking it.)
Somehow, we survive the night. I have never been so happy to be in the direct firing line of a coach’s exhaust pipe bursting into action.
But by a little after lunch time, we are home, home, and it is home. My bed is hot, my socks are off, and I sleep until 8 that evening, a deep dreamless daytime sleep.
Stupidly I failed to heed all advise about Spanish baked goods and bought a doughnut today in Granada. It looked more or less like I hoped, a familiar sugary O. Then I tried to eat it. I have learnt the hard way that in Spain a doughnut can be greasy, dry and uncooked all at the same time! Yuck. Next time I'll go for the Ensalada Granada.
ResponderEliminarYes, I was there, I saw his face, I heard his sounds. The donut was all hell in a ball.
ResponderEliminarThey (the spanish) do these palmera things here too, which are supposed pastry covered in chocolate. I bought Paul one for his birthday. Which was nice of me; because not only are they superlatively disgusting, they are roughly the size of a human torso.