This weekend (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) marks the annual celebration of Carnival, in spanish Carnavales and in euskera Iñauteriak. It's basically like an extended version of halloween in that everyone gets dressed up and there are parades in the streets, but there's no asking for candy involved. On Saturday my friends and I went to Hernani, a neighbouring town, where everyone basically gathered in the streets and in bars dancing, socializing, and, well, drinking. I have been to Hernani before and it seemed to me like there were less people than there ordinarily are when there are "fiestas". I figured out why yesterday. There's a huge celebration in another large town called Tolosa about half an hour away in train, and you'd probably have to look pretty closely to find someone not dressed up. People of all ages, babies, toddlers, teenagers, adults, I even saw a few grandparents dressed up in full-on clown costumes. I got a few good pictures on my phone but I'm not sure how to download them so as soon as I find out I'll add them on to this post. Today's supposed to be the biggest night so I'm sure I'll get some more pictures.
Other than the celebrations, rides (they had bumper cars and your typical amusment park rides, except for roller coasters, of course), and all the people gathered in the street, I really enjoyed Tolosa and I think I'm going to go back one day when there aren't any celebrations going on just to see what it's like. I found it to be a really beautiful town and I really liked the atmosphere.
The next few weeks will be rather calm after Carnavales finishes and once April comes around I'll have a lot of stories to tell.
