Carnaval!

This past weekend, which started out as a nice, relaxing three day weekend, turned into mass chaos, crazy, parade-chasing fun and excitement! It all started when Megan and I left for Sitges on Friday afternoon around 2:30pm. We were set to spend the night in the little town which would soon become crowded with people searching for the most fun. When we got there, the town was DEAD. In fact, it was dead until 7pm, because that was when people were finally off of work and strolling in the streets. (We forgot about the fact that it was still a weekday b/c we were in weekend mode.) We asked a policeman for directions to our hotel and started walking. Pretty soon we heard music in the distance and walked into a plaza to find lots of costumed people and two large floats with base pumping from their speakers! It was a mini-parade! We danced around because the song was a great one (Rise Up) and then decided to continue to our hotel. We had to walk up and down the beachfront 3 times and asked two more people until we finally had success and checked into the hotel. We then went to find a snack and walk around the town. We did find our snack and then while looking for someplace to eat it we happened upon the parade again, this time going down the street! So we sat on a low wall and just enjoyed it as the (2 float) parade went by. By this time, we had decided that the man driving the tractor of the second float was pretty good-looking, as were other costumed men, so we were content :). After eating, we decided to follow where the parade had gone and found a schoolyard of some sort where children were running around and loud techno music (like the kind you would find in a club) was playing. These kids were crazy; half were dancing around like maniacs, and the others were playing a game where they all pulled each others pants down..Confusing children. We kept walking and thought we had lost the parade forever, but then we found it again, parked and all the costumed people were eating refreshments. We walked on because we figured it was finished but then hurried back when we heard the music start up again! They probably recognized the two blonde Americans acting like groupies by then, but we didn't care. We took some more pictures, then walked back to our hotel, stopping along the way to see the Palau de Maricel and walk through the sand on the beach.
At the hotel, we met up with Crissy and Caitlin and two friends that were with them. We eventually left the hotel again to explore some more and find food and a grocery store with them. While out, Megan and I found a great pastry shop with delicious muffins (I'm pretty sure Megan fell in love with hers; I just thought mine was good. It didn't beat 85cent Boqueria muffins). We then found 2 euro masks (mine broke the next day on the way home) and a very large grocery store next to the train station. While there, Megan and I decided to make sandwiches for dinner, and not eat out. We walked back towards the center of town with our purchases and what did we find but the parade, again! The others hadn't seen it yet so we caught up with it and it parked itself in the square and the people in the parade danced around for a while. When it slowed down, we split up with the girls and went back to our hotel to eat and get ready. It took us a long time to get ready because we hadn't used face-crayons before to decorate our faces, but we looked pretty good by the time we were finished! Crissy, Caitlin, and Kristen also used the crayons.
We all left the hotel together and went where the guy at the front desk told us we were find the most people. We were lost at first, but just ended up following the loads of people dressed in costume and found the street of bars. We were definitely the minority since we didn't have a costume and drunk people kept asking us "Que es tu disfraz?" Everyone's costumes were very neat but we never found anyone from the parade with the extra-cool costumes. Later on in the evening we met up randomly with five people from our hall who had come to Sitges later in the afternoon and said hi; a few of the girls were upset because they had lost their bags-with their stuff in them, a phone for one girl, and a phone, camera, and ID for the other girl. I felt sorry but there wasn't much we could do at that point. We went home soon after that and fell into our bed. I say singular because although there were two beds in the room, one was bigger and since it was FREEZING, we took the blankets from the second bed and piled them all on so we could be warm! We also slept in our jeans. That's the sort of quality we get for 18 euro apiece.
In the morning we dragged ourselves out of bed for breakfast since it was free (and good: orange juice, coffee, toast, bocadillos) and then packed up and jumped on a train back home. But, we didn't leave before seeing the parade TWICE more that morning, once on the streets near our hotel, and again from across the train tracks. Haha that parade loved us!
The daytime on Saturday was uneventful. We went to lunch, slept till 5, and then did stuff till dinner, and went to find a parade in Barcelona after dinner. The parade took forever to find but we finally took a metro across town and heard the parade in the distance. We caught up with what was left and watched it go by. It was not that fun but still enjoyable. Afterward, we thought we might go out, but decided instead to find churros and chocolate. We gave up soon on that idea and decided instead to get flurries at McDonald's and eat them on the NitBus home. We found the Nitbus and got on, and rode around for a while before thinking, hmm, we've been on the bus a long time...Then the bus driver stopped at a stop and the only other person got off. He made hand gestures at us to leave, but we just thought he was being weird. Then the bus driver flashed his lights at us. We hurried up the the front and asked where we were, and he told us Forum. Well, we got off of the bus, really confused, and asked some people where the nearest metro stop was, and went there, still feeling very giggly and confused. When we found it, I remembered that it was the place where I had been on a field trip earlier that week and was on the OPPOSITE end of the city and near the sea. We took a really long metro ride (what we were avoiding in the first place by taking the bus) and finally made it home after 2am. We thought we'd be home at 12:30...Turns out we took a bus going in the wrong direction and they didn't loop. Oops.