I went to Avilés only in the evening to watch the parade, but they had other activities going on all day and all week! A cool part of the parade in Avilés was that they filled the streets with foam that came up to our knees. They had a huge bubble cannon that was shooting out foam into the streets. Children were playing in it and getting completely covered in foam. It was really fun to see people of all ages having fun playing in the streets and laughing with each other. Then the parade started and I was so impressed with how elaborate many of the floats were. The floats were so decorative and so detailed, and they weren't being pulled by cars, which is how we might be used to seeing floats in parades in America. The floats were being pushed along by people on either side. I stayed at the parade for a few hours, but the parade still wasn't even over by the time I left! These celebrations and parades last far into the night. It was really cool to experience a new culture and tradition in a new city in this way.
Something really cool about carnaval is that each city has slightly different celebrations. I got to experience the parades in Avilés, but I also got to experience it at the school that I'm teaching at. And these two versions of carnaval were quite different from one another. One carnaval tradition that is the same for all cities is costumes. Many people show up to the celebrations wearing any costume they like--like how Halloween is celebrated in the United States. This past Friday, the students were invited to wear costumes to school.
