Recently, some friends and I decided to visit the ancient Spanish city of Barcelona. While it was nothing short of spectacular, perhaps the signature night of the weekend was a trip to Sitges, famous for its celebration of “Carnival” (pronounced Car-nee-vall).
Of course, one needs a costume for Carnival, which I realized only after observing skimpy pirate outfits on some of my female friends an hour before departure. One of them made what she felt was a meager offer – her extra butterfly mask, which complemented my flannel and jeans nicely. “Yo soy fiesta,” I declared, in homage to New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who coined the Spanish phrase for “I am party.”
In Sitges, drinks at the first club were nine Euros. After offending enough Spaniards with our salsa dancing, we decided to explore other establishments, but our departure was messy. Lost in a fragmented exit, I didn’t see my friends turn a corner as soon as they stepped outside. Barely two hours into an all-night celebration, I was alone.
Suddenly bestowed with an opportunity to explore Sitges on my own, I stood on the beach and used a panoramic photo app to capture the city’s main street – two miles of shoulder-to-shoulder revelry. There were hordes of people of all colors, shapes and sizes, dressed in every conceivable costume in the civilized world. At one stand, I bought authentic Spanish fries. Brace yourself for this: They are exactly the same as American (French?) fries. On another block, I entered my umpteenth mysteriously labeled establishment – this time just to use the bathroom – only to find myself in a gay bar. “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” I explained to the assembled men staring at me in either confusion or adoration. Alas, they didn’t speak English.
Around this point, I decided it was finally time to return to the starting point and try to find my friends. It worked.
“Greg!” somebody shouted. I turned and looked upon a broken people. They were robbed, beyond drunk, and three out of seven, including my roommate Evan, were missing.
“Where are the rest of you?” I asked. “They’re gone.”
And so we trudged back to the train station, which was packed with similarly ruined young people. It looked like a refugee camp.
Five minutes after boarding, Evan stumbled onto the carriage with the other two MIAs, looking like he had just survived a running of the bulls. After regaining his bearings, he promptly began sprinting down the train. “Evan,” I asked as he was passing us. “Would you like a seat?”
“Oh my god!” he shouted. “Can we cuddle?” Within five minutes, he joined several others in passing out.
At this point, a panoramic photo was taken of us, and it was perhaps the all-encompassing image of the night: First, Aubrey slumped sadly in the corner, thinking as much about the loss of her beautiful photos of Barcelona as she was about the $400 camera that held them. On the other side, Lauren was even more slouched in despair, wondering how she would even return to France – her passport and every form of identification she possessed were stolen with her purse. In the middle, physically and emotionally exhausted, the man whose dream to party in Sitges until the sunrise was shattered, sat Evan – request to cuddle denied. Then there was me, the only cognizant person in the photo, compassionately offering my shoulder to the same foolish rogue whose fate was sealed when he left me in the streets. I am still sporting my butterfly mask as a staunch display of my triumphant evening – the only survivor of the beast they call Carnival. Yo soy party.
Greg Nasif is a senior history major. He can be reached at nasif@umdbk.com.
