queima das fitas

last thursday queima das fitas started in coimbra. quiema das fitas means burning of the ribbons and is this huge festival that is a week long and transforms my city in the partay central. it has been quite ridiculous. one of the big things that happens at queima is that all the freshman get to wear their capes for the first time-people at my school wear capes. they are called caloiros (sp?). people dont wear capes everyday but you always see people walking around in their capes with these dorky suits or skirt suits underneath them. there are these huge concerts every night across the river (which is about a 15 minute walk) and people are pretty much drunk all the time. portuguese people are very ridiculous when they are drunk. i have been to two concerts so far and they have been pretty cool. i saw rui valoso (who has been inaccurately discribed as the portuguese bruce springsteen) and da weasel (hah!) on one night and last night i saw quim barreiros. they were both pretty fun-more for the fact that everyone in the audience was super into them than the actual performaces.
queima starts with the saranada which is the very first night the freshman get to wear their capes. it is in the square in front of the old cathedral (sé velha) and there is fado (a traditional slow sad portuguese type of music). the shindig started at midnight so we headed down around 1130, knowing that it would be really crowded but thinking that we could deal. we could NOT. it was the most crowded experience of my life. at parts i could not breath at all and my fingers felt like i had wrapped string around them because people were pushing on my arms so hard that blood couldnt move. then the portuguese drunkies started passing out and people were yelling and there were some old people who kept hitting my back. it was cool though to look in front of you and see a sea of people in black capes.
yesterday was the the parade of queima which is the biggest, most ridiculous spectacle of the entire week. at my university there are faculties such as math or science or medicine etc, and each of these faculties operates pretty much independant of one another. they also each have their own color (the color that their ribbons which they will burn are). the faculdades put on this parade with 86! floats each one with the sole purpose of giving out free alcohol and food to all the people lining the streets. everyone on the floats are also drunk and pouring beer all over themselves. this is even funnier because everyone is wearing their suits that they would normally be under their capes with GET THIS top hats and canes for in the color of their faculdade! the parade lasts for six hours and in the end the entire city is covered with broken glass, beer, chips, streamers and drunk people. it was probably the most ridiculous thing i have ever been a part of.