Carnivale

Wow, I had a full weekend. I went to Venice for Carnivale and it was marvelous! When my friends and I got off the train we instantly got lost, Venice is not map-free friendly (But we managed to make it all weekend without a map). None of us cared that we were lost though because we were just so excited to be there. The street there are so beautiful at night, they were are all lit up and all the stores glittered with masks for Carnivale. When we got to the CHINESE hostel (only one with any room) God must have intervened because a Chinese girl walked up and was able to interpret for us.

For all of our meals we had traditional Chinese meals (I prefer the Americanized Chinese meals) it seemed like everything was pickled. We had weird chicken wings, bamboo, seaweed soup, and enough pickled veggies for a lifetime. Breakfasts there were porridge with pickled vegetables and scrambled eggs with what looked to be hot dogs.

All three days that we were there were very full with activities. One of the first things we did was find my Aunt Simonetta’s family bakery. After 75 min (it should have been a 10 min walk) of walking we found it! It was pretty exciting for me, we even got some galatis. We then meandered our way to San Marco Square where most of the festivities were taking place.

It was incredible how many people were crammed into this one area. People everywhere were dressed up in the most exquisite costumes. In all of this mess I finally found the perfect mask, it has a music theme with glitter and feathers. There were stands giving away these things that reminded me of big donut holes with raisins inside and wine. Needless to say you didn’t have to ask me twice.

After dinner on Saturday my friends and I went out to the parties. There was the big one in San Marco Square and there were also parties randomly in the middle of streets. It looked like a dance club but in the middle of a street. It was great. I think people came out from every crevice of the world Saturday night.

We were able to get next to the stage in San Marcos square and watch the performers. There was a “hot air balloon” with a trapeze artist hanging from it and a clown marching band that ended up coming right up to us and stopping. I could have reached out and touched them.

There were many drunk idiots though which lead, of course, to many fights. One of which was about five feet away from us and sent me and someone else running in the opposite direction, we slow creped back to watch the show though. I know stupid but it was like a mosquito drawn to light.

Sunday was spent just walking around and window shopping because I couldn’t afford anything there. We went into the Gucci shop just to see the prices of everything and they had a sales assistant follow us around and this big guy that we assumed was a security guard. Yep, we looked poor by their standards.
When I was back in Florence and was about to get on my bus an Italian guy got off and asked me how I was doing? I said good and went back to waiting for the bus to clear off. He then said, “You don’t have to be a BI***?” I replied with excuse me and he said it again. So I let him know that, “I don’t let anyone talk to me like that especially little boys!” He was kind of stunned/mad, so he called me a Bi*** one more time then walked off. I do have to give my dad props for that line though.

If you are still reading this I am impressed…
There is a person in there, it's a costume


That's the clown marching band





Aunt Simonetta's family bakery


That's a street