Carnaval!!!!!!!!!!

This weekend was not filled with the fantastic adventures I had anticipated, but it was adventurous nonetheless. Friday night I had heard there was a carnaval celebration in the center of town, so Edwin and I took his family´s little white volkswagon beetle for a spin downtown to find a party. What we found was a stage filled with scantily-clad woman dancing to thumping merengue music with the backdrop reading ´carnaval´, and a crowd of people quietly watching this spectacle and drinking Micheladas. Everyone seemed tired, including us, so we didn´t stay long, just long enough to say we´d been and to observe the typical mexican festival food booths. There were beer tents, quesdilla tents, huarache tents, carts set up selling sweets, peanuts with chiles, strawberries and cream and raspados (flavored ice). However, my favorites of all booths are the ones with giant signs that say ´Fried Products´ (Productos Fritos). This is the booth where you get your fried products. What kind of products are we talking about? Well, amigo, fried ones. Plantains, Potatoes, Dough, Onion, Shoes, Feathers, Puppies? Theres really no telling what you can find, but its sure to be fried. I love this ´Fried Products´ sign because its makes me imagine that you can bring anything and they will fry it for you. Of course, this is not true, but it makes me laugh anyway.

Saturday I taught in the morning and then bummed around the house in my pajamas, watching TV and grading tests. Also I went to see a horrible movie starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant on which I ended up walking out...

Sunday I probably bummed around some more and then went to Edwins house for a scrumptious fish and veggie dinner with his family. We decided to go run some errands, and on the way ran into YET ANOTHER PARADE. But this parade was really something to see.

In case you don´t already know, there is a Volkswagon factory in Mexico and lovebugs are incredibly popular. Edwin once called Mexico ´the land of the lovebugs´and it is entirely true. I often (half) joke about how I would like to buy one and make it an art car- maybe paint it green and blue and white like the earth and the sky with clouds. If you are going to have a bug, you might as well make it as rediculous as possible.

Anyway, in this parade all the beetles showed up just like they were recent canadates on Pimp My Ride; one purple with a ear-damaging bass and doors that folded up like the vehicle in Back to the Future, a yellow convertible with silver stripes and an explosed, gleaming motor, a brown beetle with orange fire stripes...it just went on and on, much to my delight.

Not only this, but there were endless amounts of dance schools dressed in rediculous chiquita banana lady type outfits (its okay to laugh, these are not in any way costumes native to mexico) dancing behind big trucks playing gloria estefan. There was a dance troupe decked out in an angels vs. devils theme (the devils were obviously more seductive dancers). There were brazilian style drumlines. There were beer girls, chucking their Tecate cans from above to the demise of whatever stupid man that shouted for a beer but didn´t have the power to catch a can moving at a high velocity.

My favorite part was when about 12 elderly women came twirling down the road, smiling with wisdom and age as they spun their red sequened parasols, waving with white gloved hands and floating in their matching silver and red sequined shirts and ankle length skirts. Who were they and why were they in the parade? One can only wonder.

I also enjoyed the dance group sponsered by Kentucky Fried Chicken, with a man sized chicken on a float, dangerously throwing candy and and spicing up the event with the 'finger lickin good' slogan and symbol of american globalization for the masses. My heart fluttered a bit with state pride and my stomach growled for a yummy biscuit.

But in summary, more and more my heart is moving me towards a trip to Brazil where the real Carnaval spectacle of the world takes place. I am investigating and can see myself going to teach there in January, but of course, we´ll see what happens. For this reason I may start learning Portuguese as language three. Any thoughts?