MexiCanadian

I don’t even know how to start this post, except to say that I will remember Carnaval in Veracruz for the rest of my life. Even if I succumb to Alzheimer’s or Dementia one day and forget my name and how to use the washroom, I will still recount to the nurses who change my bedpans about the time I went to Carnaval when I was 22. It was really that awesome.

A 1.8-litre bottle of beer cost 16 pesos, so if we follow this math, 3.6 litres was only 32 pesos. That is $2.59 in Canadian dollars. I got drunk at the biggest party in Mexico for less than the cost of a BigMac while I danced in the street with strangers, ate candy thrown at me from beautifully decorated floats, and was nearly blinded by millions of lights in colours that I didn’t even realize existed this weekend. 

Here is a quick overview of the weekend:

12:00 p.m. The road trip begins! Dear mom, please note we are all wearing seatbelts :)     

2:00 p.m. (ish) The lovely drive continues and we stop for lunch.

4:00 p.m. Arrival! I break a branch while trying to climb a tree in a feeble attempt to feel like a kid. Several hundred ants lands in my hair and I spend the next half hour trying to brush them out and kill them. Lesson learned.

5:30 p.m. I buy my first 1.8 litre beer. 

5:52 p.m. I finish my first 1.8 litre beer.

6:00 p.m. I need the washroom, badly.

6:45 p.m. After explaining in Spanglish that Canadians (and the Polish, for my friend Ola’s sake) have small bladders, we both finally get to use an outhouse.

8:00 p.m. The parade begins. Sarah buys another comically oversized beer.

8:29 p.m. Sarah finishes her comically oversized beer.

8:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. Sarah dances with a baton twirler, a salsa dancer, and pretty much everyone else in the vicinity.

11:00ish p.m. My camera batteries start dying, and as I get ready to put it back into my purse, I managed to take this RAVISHING self portrait.

11:00 p.m. onwards: I witness a successful robbery, a failed robbery, much public urination, revelry, merrymaking, buy an entire pizza, eat most of said pizza, have a 3-hour nap, and then get back on the road to Puebla.

I’ve decided I can’t come home until I dance with every single person in the country. Starting now.