Sitges Means Carnival.

After a long weekend in Paris with a flight delayed and returning late on Monday the last thing on my mind was the celebration of Carnival in Sitges Tuesday night. However, with friends in town from Florence and many of my friends in Barcelona discussing their plans all day and doing a little research on the festivities myself, I decided that this was an experience that I could not miss out on while I was in Spain. So late Tuesday night a big group of friends and I, in costumes of course with bottles of wine in hand, boarded the train towards sitges.

When we stepped off the train we had no idea what to expect especially since we had taken a decently late train with not very many costumed participants on it. As soon as we got our bearings we decided to follow the massive herd of people to wherever they were going figuring they had an idea! When we got close to the beach what we saw was equivalent to mass chaos where everyone was dressed in some crazy theme. Float after float passed us as we headed towards the beach to check out the rest of the scene. Here's just a few pictures of some of the floats that I saw:

We quickly discovered that all of the people were extremely friendly there and that this was an opportunity for everyone to meet new people and go crazy for a night! Knowing that we quickly made lots of friends and one of my friends dressed as a clown quickly found similarity with a big group also dressed as clowns: (she is the one without face paint)

We also met up with more of our friends seeing people we had no idea would be there and continuing to meet new people as well! Luckily when hunger struck we found deals for hot dogs and HUGE beers right of of the beach and so the festivities continued. Here's a picture of me with more groups:

This guy kept coming up to my friends and I and was actually quite scary!!!

Finally at 6 am we all decided that it was time to call it a night! Two of our friends decided to stay longer in Sitges and unfortunately ended up getting most of their belongings stolen from them, maybe a much different cultural experience than Carnival in general?? As you always say Xavi they are masters with what they do and you must always watch your belongings so very closely! But as we went to get on the train to head back towards Barcelona, and our respective homes, my friend Alex (the clown) and I got shoved to the floor of the train as people attempted to trample over us to find space on the train. We finally made our way to standing again and could not stop laughing because after such a fantastic night almost nothing could upset us. I can't explain how glad I am that I decided to attend Carnival, I truly got to see an entirely different aspect of Spanish culture and wish that I could come back every year!