When I had asked in October if anyone was going to dress up as a superhero or anything similar for Halloween, I was looked at as if I was crazy. They all replied, "NO! That is for carnival."
Unfortunately, I was out of town for the first Carnival weekend celebrated in Asturias. It happened to fall on my birthday, and my mom had flown in to visit. We went to Palermo, Sicily, but still got to experience carnival there. We ended up going on a day trip to Sciacca, a city on the southern cost of Sicily that had carnival festivities going on. There were these huge floats, which I think are the coolest and most detailed ones I had ever seen. Just like Spain, all the kids were gathered in costumes and marvelled at these giant floats.
Although I missed the initial weekend, to my surprise, the following week while I was in town was the Oviedo parade. Here I got to see the decorations spread out through the city, as well as the Carnival activities. The parade went along Calle Uria, which is the main street of the city, all the way into the cathedral square. By the time I went to go and look for a spot to watch the parade, both sides of the streets and every possible gap to be able to see the parade clearly was taken. I did not expect it to be as busy as it was. I eventually settled on a spot near the end of the parade, three or four rows back. Luckily I am a little tall so I could see over people and get a decent view of the parade. Most of the acts were local schools putting on performances with modern songs or older, traditional Asturian music.
At the end of the parade there was a stage set up at the cathedral square and each group performed their final act there. At the end they were judged and a winner was chosen.
