What a week. I'm still recovering from Carnaval, which was last night. The festival was really unbelievable. People from all over Spain were there, dressed up in every imaginable costume (including a group of matadors holding mock bullfights, a roll of toilet paper that was almost out, two people attached to an upright mattress as if in bed, the full cast of "Sesame Street" and innumerable men in drag). The energy was really refreshing, as was the fact that none of the girls seemed to feel obligated to dress provocatively -- half of them were dressed as chickens. Our bus took us back home at 5:30 am and the streets were still filled with people drinking, singing, dancing and climbing light poles. I don't know how they do it.

It's not visible, but I had an awesome tail.

It was hard to really get any sense of Cádiz as a city, but I'd love to go to the beach there when it's warmer.

Anyway, now that my history course is finally over, I can relax and gear up for Barcelona and then university classes next week. Our last few class trips were focused on the two expositions Sevilla hosted in the 20th century. The María Luisa Park, created for the Iberoamerican Expo of '29, is really spectacular and its pavilions are featured on half of the postcards here. I took some photos of it on the SLR, so I'll put those up once they're developed. The remains of the Universal Expo of '92 (which was the largest exposition ever held at the time) are kind of pathetic and too far north for anyone to visit anymore -- basically an example of a lot of money poured into poor city planning.

We also went to the Andalusian Center of Contemporary Art, which is in el Monesterio de la Cartuja, a 13th-century monastery in northwest Sevilla (near my apartment). I really enjoyed some of the art, and seeing it in such a bizarre context made it all the more interesting. Our professor gave a pretty inadequate tour, so I definitely plan on going back.

My friend Heidi has some more info plus photos of those visits on her blog: http://heidischultheis.blogspot.com/

Time for me to sleep off Carnaval some more. Hope everyone is well.