What’s Going On?

Today ends the two day festival celebration of Carnaval San Francisco 2009. It was a pretty amazing celebration that involves many if not all countries south of the U.S. in the western hemisphere. The festival that kicked off Carnaval extended from 16th St and Harrison to 22nd St. and Harrison. Street artists, food vendors, merchandise vendors, and people filled the streets with two main stages at both ends of the festival grounds.

Saturday, was a bit gloomy and the turn out was good, but not extremely overcrowded. The sun had not made an appearance this week as opposed to last week’s Asian Heritage Celebration and the Bay to Breakers. Food vendors at this venue were spotted in three areas conveniently located so that by the time you finished listening to the bands or finished shopping for merchandise there was food to satisfy your cravings. Unlike, most festivals in San Francisco, the Carnaval celebration had many ethnic foods of the Mexican/Latin American/South American countries.

The highlight of Saturday’s festival was special musical guest Eddie Santiago, who is a very famous salsa singer. I watched him for quite sometime and he was very good. He got the crowd going and there were many that started dancing in the streets. It was pretty awesome. Watching people salsa made me want to pick up lessons once again. I kind of miss dancing to Latin/South American music, or in other words, “musica.”

Sunday, probably why most people come to the Carnaval festivities is for the large Carnaval Parade. The parade started at about 10am. I don’t recall when the parade ended, but I”m pretty sure that it was a little over 3 hours. This year marked my first experience ever at the Carnaval Parade and I must say that I really enjoyed it. I got to Mission St at about 9am and I found parking right on 18th St and Mission, just 4 meters back from the corner. The most awesome thing is that Sunday there is free parking and the whole day I did not have to worry about getting a ticket. I walked down the street to find a good spot and settled at the middle of the block between 19th and 20th Sts. As you may not know this is probably the best spot to be at. There is a BART train station at 16th and one at 24th St. Where I was camped out, I was smack dab in the middle of large crowds and the whole parade experience was amazing without anyone to shove or bump into you from behind. I met this nice lady and she kept me company and vise versa for a pretty solid hour.

When the parade started, it was just non-stop action with lively dancing and music. There were so many different countries represented that if I were quizzed on which countries were present, I would fail. Float after float, the dancers lined the streets with cultural costumes that were just spectacular. Some parade groups tried to pump up the crowd to get them involved in the whole spirit of things and some tossed out beads and candy. One thing that made me most happy was to give this little boy this bouncy ball that I caught from one of the parade marchers. His face lit up and he said, “thank you.” Just that kind gesture sure made my day. It would continue to be a great day by just meeting people all over the place just simply by taking pictures of them. Next year, I plan on being in the midst of the crowds. I feel like I missed a little something this year and I would say probably the lively energy. It’s something about being surrounded by thousands of people make your whole experience different and that I would like to try.

After the parade, I headed back to the festival grounds where there was massive amounts of people, so much more than Saturday, but that’s mainly due to the parade attendees. The sun made a brief appearance and it was great. Music there was just as good as the day before and checking out costumes up close and personal was a sure treat. I ended the day at Carnaval with my feet almost wanting to fall off. I had endured about 6-7 hours of standing and they were killing me. I was smart though this parade because I made sure to bring a seat to sit on. Always be prepared is what I know tell myself before going to any parade that involves time waiting. Anyhow, next year I hope the sun comes out and I get the chance to taste all the foods at many of the stands. Great festival to bring the whole family.