Posts Tagged ‘carnival’

This week was carnival. Unsurprisingly they do things differently here: no Jif lemon day for a start (mind you that’s not a major problem because you can get pancakes most places). Instead they do carnival, and not just on fat Tuesday either, they spread it out so in Avilés it was on Saturday, in Gijon on Tuesday and in Oviedo yesterday. We went with Maria Jesús and Covadonga to Avilés last week for the early part of the evening, a parade of floats combined with a lot of foam. They said that pretty much everyone is in fancy dress and they weren’t kidding. It’s unusual to see so many adults in costume without the aid of alcohol. The yoot turned up in waterproofs and had fun in the foam and water cannons, then went home and changed into their costumes.

Oviedo is said to be much tamer, although they too had a parade of floats (sans foam this time) and folk in costume. There was a drumming nun troupe (silver habits and faces, I don’t think any of them had actually taken holy orders and there was the group of non-politically-correct burka-wearing folk (whose burkas were fashioned from vyleda mop material…

Then later, in the street, there were hordes of yoot again in fancy dress, again without the support of excess alcohol. We saw doctors, nurses, mini mouses, Jasons, Princes Valiant, Spider men, hippies, TV heads, cats, dogs, cowboys and girls, cross dressers and chickens… all doing what they normally do on Saturday nights, only in costume. I did feel a little craving for some Jif lemon though…