Protests and Parties

This week has been very interesting at USal. Since Tuesday, there have been on-going student protests over something that no one I've talked to really understands. It has something to do with credits, but even my professors don't really know what the students are protesting. However, like all good protesters, they have successfully been interrupting the normal lives of everyone around them, including classes. One of my professors got very angry when they were in our building and left the classroom and went and told them off. It wasn't very effective in convincing them to leave, and I'm pretty sure that he just egged them on (he commented to our class that this sort of political activism came to Spain from France). As the week has continued, though, we've adjusted to a quasi-equilibrium with the protesters.
Today, marks the beginning of a new distraction, the first of the festivals for the patron saints of the facultades. The first festival is in the Facultad of Medicine, and it is well-known for its extravagance and drunkenness, but they're going to try to crack down on the excessive revelry this year. Since they don't have classes for the rest of the week, there are gangs of noisy, costumed medical students roaming around the city with the protesters, which makes for a lot of chaos and distraction.