This weekend was Carnivale which is basically the European version of Mardi Gras, a celebration before the start of Lent. On Friday, we stayed in Verona and watched the parade while eating outside at our favorite restaurant, the Ippopotumo (Hippopotamus). We hung out with our program director Claudio, who was wearing some kind of vampire-wolverine-zombie mask and running around scaring small children. Very entertaining to say the least. The floats in the parade were the coolest floats I have ever seen and included giant Captain Morgan and Obama floats. Awesome. Now Carnivale is celebrated all over Europe, but nothing compares to how they do it in Venice. We left for Venice Saturday morning around 10 and got there around 12:30. We bought some masks when we got off the train and we were on our way. It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Tamer than Mardi Gras (well there was no one flashing for beads) but more hyped up than Halloween. We saw all kinds of really intricate Venetian costumes and although it was crowded, we made our way through the narrow streets between the canals and after walking in every possible wrong direction, we found the main square. Took a ton of pictures and although this was a family event, we soon decided to find a liquor store. We settled on a bottle of champagne for the 4 of us and each purchased a soft drink and one of those pocket sized bottles of hard alcohol. Then we ripped shots in the middle of Venice and it was grand. As we took pictures curious onlookers also stopped to admire the audacity of Americans to just drink in the middle of the main city square. It was a friendly atmosphere and we received more chuckles than glares so it was fine. We weren't drunk by any means but tipsy enough that the dropping temperatures didn't seem so bad. We even made some friends including a man stressed as a wandering minstrel who stopped to chug half our bottle of champagne, then proceeded to try to make out with my friend Stephanie, lick her boyfriend's neck, and kiss their feet. Like I said: Halloween on steroids.
Ciao for now,
Mia
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