Friday 1 February 2008

An Unexpected Pleasure [Un Placer Inesperado]

Yesterday was the start of Carnevale. I'm not entirely sure what this is about (in fact I'm completely clueless). It's something to do with the lead-up to Lent (the 'Christian Ramadan'). I know there's a lot of stuff going on, 'cos this is Madrid and they like us to be entertained.

This being a Friday, and yesterday being payday (for BetterArf) we decided to meet for lunch. BetterArf has a three- or four-hour break between classes on Friday afternoons. But first she wanted to buy a camera, to replace the one I got her for her birthday in November (which was stolen just after Christmas) to replace the one that was stolen in August.

We agreed to meet at FNAC at Callao. FNAC is the best place to buy techno-stuff, music and books anywhere in Europe, except the UK. Outside FNAC there was a small amount of chaos. Men and women in the costumes of Moors, Romans and brass bands were thronging the street, evidently waiting to begin a parade. Well, I hadn't brought my camera, and FNAC had no stock of the one BetterArf wanted, so we moseyed on down to the dreaded El Corte Inglés.



ECI had the camera, but the very efficient sales lady pointed out that for an extra 10 Euros we could get a higher end model with a free goodie box containing a memory card, a battery charger, a carry case and a little tripod with yellow legs. So that's what she went for and it really is pretty damn smart. In fact, I'm jealous. It has a sexy matt-black finish, a 2.8 inch screen, 8 megapixels and 3x optical zoom. And it's made by Nikon (it's an LC15), who know their way around cameras.

So we left El Corte Inglés with the camera all set up and ready to roll, and found that the parade had started. It seems that a lot of the participants had come from the Costa Brava - I'm sure there'll be a lot of colourful revelry later on. The costumes were absolutely fantastic.













What choo lookin' at?





If the bank ever find out I'm doing this . . .



You didn't! I did.













Still lovin' it!

3 comments:

Graeme said...

There's not much more to Carnival in Madrid, especially as this year the concert budget seems to have been slashed. Well there is the burial of the sardine next week! Real carnival in Spain happens in Cadiz or the Canary Islands.

Jayne said...

Gawd keef, there's SO much going on there really! I love the captions to the pics :-)

dubaibilly said...

There were a few people dressed up in Barcelona, but nothing like this - one group of people were dressed as witches, one group as a packet of lucky strike cigarettes, various children as fairies or pirates and a group of guys dressed up as women. Couldn't really figure out what it was all about!

This should be interesting - the visual verification hasn't come up so it might not let me post!

Nope, it didn't, but it did make the VV appear.