Carnivale a Venezia

I spent the last three days in Venice for Carnivale season, and even though it rained the entire time, I can honestly say that I've never had more fun in my entire life. From seeing an Italian ska band to riding in a gondola, and meeting gypsy accordion players to wearing a cape and playing with a plastic sword, this entire weekend was incredible.

I don't have all of the pictures here, but this is a start. Most of the fun at-night pictures are on other peoples' cameras, so I'll post some when I can get them e-mailed to me.

Anyway, this is how Carnivale went down:

We got to Venice after a 4-hour bus ride and a 30-minute boat ride. It was rainy and freeeeeezing! I think it was under 30 degrees the whole weekend. But once we got there, checked into our hotel (a nunnery), broke away from the tour of church after church after church (pretty, but once you see 100, you've seen them all) ... Anyway, after all that, we, of course, got lost. But we found a carousel and some candied peanuts, and we didn't even care that we had no idea where we were.

Here's me on the carousel. My roommate, Sarah, who is also from ASU, is behind me there. She'll also be one of my seven roommates once we get to Roma.

Here's me and Annaliss, another of my future Roman roommates, at dinner. We ate at a place called Ae'Oche, which means goose. This was the place mat. We thought it was funny. Despite the humor, I had the best pizza I've ever eaten in my life - pizza with eggs and asparagus. DELICIOUS.

There are several pictures missing here in my chronology of my trip to Venice. I apparently took NO pictures from Friday night, but in a rundown, a group of us were heading to la Piazza San Marco, where there's a large church and the Doges Palace, but we never made it. Along the way we found a live ska band playing (in italian) in a piazza, and it was a blast. We hung around, met the band (and my future husband, Domenico, the trombone player) and bought some CDs. All in all, a great night. Unfortunately, our 1 a.m. curfew in the nunnery called us home before Domenico and I could elope. Oh well.

(update: in the meantime, here is a picture of Domenico off the band's web site:)

This is a picture from Saturday morning of me with some Carnivale folk outside the Doges palace. We never made it inside, because ...

We got our faces painted. Much more my type of art, anyway. ;o) This is me with the clown who painted my face.

Here's a closeup of my face. The clown was excited that the purple matched my hat, and the gold matched my hair. Fun.

After some shopping (btw, I'm broke now. Wire me some money?), a group of us took a gondola ride. This was one of the best experiences of my life. We got to see some parts of Venice that we wouldn't otherwise, and our rower was really awesome. Although, he wouldn't sing for us ... Sad!

But he did teach Annaliss how to row the gondola.

The best part of the weekend? CAPES. Sarah and I bought our Carnivale capes, which keep you surprisingly warm. Which was good, since we were outside watching acrobats, dancing, getting lost, being led back by a gypsy accordion procession and talking the nuns into letting us back inside well past curfew ... I again, somehow, took NO pictures of that night, but I know for a fact that Annalis did, so I'll post those when I can.

Here's me, way too bright (and too early) on Sunday morning at the Guggenheim museum.

Here's me and Sarah on the Accademia bridge over the grand canal, before boarding our boat and bus back to Firenze.

What's next: We're in Florence for the next few days, finals for our intensive language classes are on Wednesday, and Thursday, we're off to Roma!! I can't wait, but I do think I will miss Florence. I ended up liking it much more than I thought, but it will be good to be able to stop living out of a suitcase and to have an apartment with internet access 24/7. Until then ... Arrivederci!