¡Caranaval! (Day 2)

We were warned about the craziness of Solsona's Carnaval. But I don't think we fully believed the stories until today at around 4pm. Just below us is a bar called the Cantabric, which is the most popular bar in town and on normal weekends it can be pretty rowdy outside our windows until 2am. So this is what we were expecting, just more of the same. But yesterday in the early afternoon, one of the more boisterous comparsas set up a dj booth just outside of the Cantabric and began blasting all sorts America "hit" songs. For some reason old American music is extremely popular here, as if they were the latest hits. But we could have dealt with the musical time warp - what had us devising ways to put ourselves quickly and painlessly out of our misery was they fact that there was also a microphone involved in this little impromptu dj stand. Mind you, these guys running the booth had probably been drinking since sometime the day before.  During the songs, the guy on the mic was either singing along as loud and as off key as he possibly could, or he was singing out just the beat of the song, or he was just yelling gratuitously, just because he could. It was horrendous and it sounded like he was sitting in our living room. Conversation was impossible, unless we felt like shouting ourselvs. Good times. He finally quieted down around 6:30pm or so. Meanwhile, plastic barricades had been set up through the plaza, creating a mini race track, with jumps and obstacles. The road leading into and out of the plaza goes downhill, fairly steep in some parts. One of the activities for Carnaval is the building of little "race cars" which are then ridden down this course and trophies are later awarded for the fastest. From our balcony, we could look down and watch the show. It was hilarious. Check it out!

This ended around 8pm or so and then the sausages were cooked. Everyone eats in the streets, drinks in the streets and just wanders and makes a ruckus. Last night, I got myself a sausage, called "butifarra," and it was DELICIOUS! The music went on again from the stage in the plaza and people danced and ate and drank and blew whistles and ran around. There was a drumming group and firecrackers and lots of beer and things didn't quiet down until almost 4am. We wandered around and took in the spectacle until about midnight or so, but then tried to get some sleep. It wasn't happening. The party was practically IN our bedroom. No sleep til sunrise!