Carnaval!

It officially feels like spring here. For the past week, the sun has been shining non-stop and the flowers are in bloom. I've spent the past three days basking in the hot sun on the patio, and I've finally regained some color in my pale winter skin. Every time I walk outside without a jacket I'm thrown into an instantaneously really great mood (unless I'm heading off to class after lunch or something). All in all, I just want to thank gloomy, cold upstate New York for helping me appreciate the sun and a blue sky.

Now that that piece is said, I can talk about Carnaval! (My new favorite day of the French school year.) It is basically a day where people dress up in costumes to celebrate the beginning of spring. (Oh - and carnaval is the French spelling of carnival, so I just thought I should stick that in here somewhere.) Our school's Carnaval was yesterday; I dressed up as a playing card (the Queen of Hearts) with Mathilde and another friend, Charlotte (not my host sister). We spent all Sunday making our costumes with the help of paper board and a lot of computer images and now I'm pretty sure there's no more colored printer ink left in France. Charlotte made earrings and rings out of cards, and we coordinated our outfits to be black and red - down to the fingernails haha! 

I was slightly worried because Charlotte and Mathilde are in the same class and they started an hour earlier than me, and I didn't want to be the only one decked out (yes, pun intended) in an absolutely ridiculous costume in my class. And as it turns out, I did look ridiculous and overboard because only about half of my class dressed up (and, mind you, in outfits where you don't have to worry about walking through doorways and such), but I really didn't care because I thought I looked rather fantastic. The weirdest part was walking to school all alone the morning of with random people just staring as you walked by. However, to be completely honest, I kind of felt invincible in my costume. (Yes, it sounds weird, but I can't think of any other way to put it.) As the day went on, I felt less and less self-conscious and on the walk home that evening, I didn't care one bit what people were thinking. 

The main festivities occurred around lunchtime. I brought a picnic and ate with Mathilde and Charlotte outside. We ate our smoked salmon sandwiches, chips, drinkable yogurt, and little chocolate hearts on the grass under the perfectly warm sun. Almost everyone brought picnics, and there were even several people who were ready with blankets and huge parasols haha :p 

After lunch, we all headed to the outdoor track to parade our costumes. Carnaval also consists of a competition for best costume, so there were judges and runway music playing. First place went to my host brother, Simon, and his friends who dressed up as Tetris. I must say, their costumes were really great and original, and they certainly spent a lot of time making it. Here's some pictures of the costumes:

One thing that surprised me was how laid back the school was about dress-code for Carnaval. There was a group of boys that dressed up in kilts and paraded around the track flashing everyone multiple times; including the teachers. (They won second place.) Oh, and Marlboro won for best individual costume. There were also male teachers dressed up with half of their shirt unbuttoned and all their chest hair sticking out. Euh... 'Nuf said. In addition, there were tons of students who brought fake real-looking guns to school as part of their costumes; surely one thing that would never ever, in a million years, pass in an American high school! - Halloween or not. There were some awesome costumes, though, and I definitely agreed with first place going to Tetris. 

After the parade, everything went back to normal minus all the costumes. I had class for yet another 4 hours, so that was kind of painful, but other than that, Carnaval was a success!