Carnivale

I’m back from Venice!

Saturday morning I got up really early to get ready and pack for Venice. It was a weekend trip organized by the school, and Kate, Lindsey, and I had all signed up for it. Kate and I left our room at 5:45 and walked to the place where our buses were waiting. It was pretty far from our apartment so it took a while. The buses left at 6:30 and it’s about a four hour drive. We stopped at a rest stop along the way that had GIANT jars of Nutella. Like, they were more than € 30, which is like 50 dollars.

This would last about a week, maybe ;)

When we got as far as we could drive, we got on a boat that took us to the main island. We had a few hours to do whatever we wanted. Lindsey and I walked around and found the Rialto Bridge and took pictures there. Venice has so many twists and turns and little bridges and it’s very easy to get lost. It’s also very easy to find your way back to St. Mark’s square (near where we were supposed to meet the group), so we weren’t too worried. After a while we met Meghan, Hannah, and Brittni who were there on their own. We hung out with them for a little while but we didn’t have a lot of time before we had to leave. Lindsey and I grabbed lunch at a sandwich shop and we sat in the square outside and listened to an accordion player. Saturday was perfect weather. It was cool but it was very sunny and the sky was really blue.

Perfect weather

Side note: You know those paintings you see everywhere of Venice? They look like they’re not really real, because the old buildings are all different colors and they’re all so small and tall and literally touching the water. Well, that’s actually what Venice looks like. Every street and every bridge and every building is so perfect. The vines and the window boxes and the chipped and peeling paint add to the charm of the city. The gondoliers look just like they should. Most of them wear black and white striped shirts and hats. It is without a doubt a tourist trap. It costs so much to live on the island that the actual population of Venice is only a fraction of what it used to be. But there is a reason it is such a tourist trap. It’s really, really lovely.

Pretty building, pretty sky

Anyway, we got on the boat again that afternoon and rode to the island of Murano. It’s an island famous for its glass factories. The reason all the glass factories are on Murano goes back many years. Glass making requires furnaces that are VERY hot, and back in the day, the wooden buildings often burned down. So the Venetians decided to put all the glass makers on one island, Murano. We stopped at one glass factory where we got to see a demonstration. We watched the glass maker make a vase and a horse. It was very neat to see him work. Our tour guide said that when you buy glass in Venice, you aren’t paying so much for the materials. You’re paying for the labor, because to become a glass maker takes 10 years of training and costs quite a bit. They gave us a 50% discount on the glass in the factory store. I bought a Christmas ornament and two bracelets. One for me; one for Mom.

We left Murano and took the boat to Burano. The island of Burano is famous for its lace. It’s equally famous for its brightly colored buildings. It’s a very sleepy little island and the people were all very friendly. The bell tower on that island leans, like the tower in Pisa. We didn’t have a lot of time in Burano. I would have liked to explore it a little more; it was very nice. I think most people come to Venice and only go to the Venice part. They skip the other, smaller islands which are just as wonderful.

Burano

From Burano, we boated and then bused to our hotel. The hotel was small, but clean and comfortable. The shower was about 1 square foot. (I exaggerate, but it was VERY tiny.) Europeans are strange. If they would just get rid of the bidet, they’d have plenty of room for a decent sized shower. I don’t get it.

We left the hotel around 8 to go to dinner. The restaurant was about 20 minutes away. (I forgot what it was called.) We had a traditional Carnivale dinner.

We started with wine and bread. Then for the appetizer we had sausage, and pancetta (It’s like bacon)/zucchini wrapped up on a stick served with polenta. First courses: risotto and gnocci. (I was so excited about this little pasta made with potatoes. I didn’t like it, though. Disappointment.) Second course: roasted pork, served with potatoes and spinach. Dessert: Traditional Carnival “donuts” with raisins (I forgot the technical term), and chiacchiere. Finally, coffee. The meal itself took about three hours, and then the DJ played a bunch of songs and everyone danced with their masks on. It was a lot of fun.

Masks!

Sunday was the actual opening day of Carnivale. We ate breakfast at the hotel and then left around 8. It took a while to get to Venice because we had to take the bus and then wait for our 9 o’clock boat. We got to Venice and it. was. CROWDED.

We walked to the Peggy Guggenheim museum of contemporary art. We had a tour there and saw works by Picasso, Pollock, and many others. At 11:30, we had to leave the museum even though our tour wasn’t finished, because we wanted to make it back to St. Mark’s square by noon to see the “Flight of the Angel” opening ceremony of Carnivale. I have never been in that big of a crowd in my life. There were people EVERYWHERE. We couldn’t get into the square, but we had a pretty good view from the side. Dramatic music played as the “Angel” slid down a cable from the top of the bell tower to a stage on the other side of the square. Then everyone basically tried to get out of the square at once. There was lots of pushing and shoving and chaos, and for at least a block I barely had to walk because I was pretty much being carried down the street by so many people. The police attempted crowd control, but it wasn’t very effective.

Flight of the Angel

We didn’t bring our masks with us on Sunday because we were worried they would get ruined if it rained. Instead, we got our faces painted! I sat down and told the lady I wanted blue, on the right side of my face. She started painting my face, and then all these tourists (French, Asian, Dutch. . .) started coming up and taking pictures of me. I felt like a model. And I’ll probably end up in a bunch of people’s scrapbooks all over the world. So that was a weird experience. Then an old Italian man standing there kept trying to explain something to me, but I couldn’t understand him. He found someone to translate. He wanted to tell me that with my face painted, it would look better if I took my earrings off. So I did. I trust old Italian men when it comes to style, obviously.

Faces painted, it was time for lunch. I had a calzone and Lindsey had something with spinach and ricotta. Naturally, we went to the bakery afterwards for dessert. I bought a DELICIOUS Carnivale fritter filled with creamy pudding stuff. And I bought something that looked like a brownie, but it definitely wasn’t. It had a flavor in it that sort of reminded me of poison. I threw it out.

Then we went to the Duke’s Palace (Doge's Palace). It was really huge. Lindsey and I decided to have fun with this. So instead of reading the descriptions of each room, what they were used for, etc, and solemnly looking at the artwork on the walls, we pretended we were the Duke. And this was our house. And we were giving a tour of it. At one point we were both laughing so hard I almost cried. It wouldn’t really be funny if I tried to explain it now; you just had to be there.

The Duke’s Palace was pretty much the last thing we did. We browsed through some other stores and then met up with the group. We got on the boat, then got on the bus, and rode back to Florence. We got home around 10pm, completely exhausted.

Carnivale was a lot of fun. We got to be there and see all the costumes and masks and bright colors. We heard the music and the noise of the crowds. We tasted the traditional celebratory food of the region, and we fell in love with the magic of Venice. It gives you sort of the same feeling as Disney World, only better. Since we were there during Carnivale, there were several things we didn’t get to do/see because of crowds. We might go back to Venice sometime in April on our own when it isn’t so crazy.

This is definitely a weekend I’ll remember forever.