Carnevale!

I've fallen behind with my blogg-a-log-ing....I'm not as efficient, brief or reliable as Dr. Paul "Blog-a-longa".

So.....Carnevale.....I'll have to cast my mind back because it was four weeks ago now and so much has happened since!

Carnevale has been celebrated in Venice since the 13th century and marks the period leading up to Lent. The exact translation of "carnevale" is apparently debated (thank you Wikipedia) but the translation that makes the most sense to me is "farewell to meat"....a celebration of food and good times prior to the fasting of Lent.

The start date of Carnevale is always 40 days before Easter....and with an early Easter this year came an early Carnevale. Carnevale lasts for 11 days and finishes on Martedi Grasso (Fat Tuesday). It seems that Venice really comes alive during Carnevale. Normally Venice is very touristy but during Carnevale, the island is completely taken over for two weeks. During this time it's rare to hear much Italian spoken. There appeared to be a lot of people who go all out - staying in expensive hotels, dressing up in Baroque costumes and having their photographs taken.....by other toursits....like me.

So Carnevale was a massive party. We spent most nights just walking around the streets from one campo (piazza) to the next and soaking in the free music, drinking vin brulee and eating the traditional sweet of Carnevale, frittelle (basically small doughnuts.....but ohhhhhh so good!). Frittelle are only available during Carnevale so I over-indulged a little.....my jumper still smells like cinnamon from spilling vin brulee and frittelle on myself. Oh the shame.

This year a focus for the entertainment was Romanian music / art. Another focus was the theme of "six sensations" for the six sestieri (sections) of Venice. Highlights for me were therefore watching the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra for free in Piazza San Marco, and the experience of being led around a completely dark room by a blind Italian woman - the idea being to experience what it is like to be blind and to awaken your other senses! Of course I was missing two of my senses because I couldn't understand all of the Italian instructions!

However, one of the most interesting moments of Carnevale was at the beginning - the opening party. The background to this story is that the week prior to Carnevale, sadly, two Venetian warfies were killed unloading a ship containing maize.....I'm not entirely certain of the science, but there was some form of combustion in the shipping containers leading to the emmission of gas and the two workers died from asphyxiation. As a sign of respect, the start of Carnevale was postponed until 12am Saturday night. My italian teacher informed me that deaths at work are a significant political issue here in Italy - apparently 2 workers are killed on the job in Italy each day. It was impressive to see the level of respect that was paid to the workers.....flags were flown at half mast and some businesses were shut for the day.

However this meant that there was some uncertainty about the opening of the 'opening party' - a five room electronica / dance music spectacular that had been widely advertised. Paul and I discovered from looking at the website that we had to buy tickets......information that was missing from all the posters plastered all over Venice!!! We had assumed it was free like everything else. We also discovered that the time of the opening party had been pushed back two hours so that it would start at 12am.

So we go to buy tickets at 5pm to be told that there were none left. Paul didn't believe this and Erika was also unaware of the need for a ticket.....so we went to the party anyway. We were confronted with hundreds of people outside the doors of the pavillion and very little security to be seen. In fact the only official person to be seen whilst we were getting crushed in the crowd was perched on a gate taking photographs of everyone being crushed to death.

Paul and I were thinking....."So do we need a ticket? Where are they selling tickets? Do these people next to us have tickets? Are we going to get all the way to the entrance only to be turned away? Are we going to die?" etc.

So rather than dragging out the story any further, we got in, we survived. It was only in the coming days that we came to understand all the drama. They had planned for 2,000 people.....5,000 people turned up.....the gate was pushed in.....people pushed their way through the entrance.....no more cover charge.....bad luck to those people who bought a ticket......they compensated by rising the price of drinks at the bar to 10 euros each.....people had to wait up to an hour to reclaim their jacket from the cloak room......toilets couldn't be found so people created their own (this one I saw myself).....etc.

And it was only on our way out, high from the adrenalin of surviving, did we finally see some security. About 15 police officers standing in a circle about 50 - 100 metres back from the entrance....just chatting.

Ahhhhhh yeah. Italy will toughen me up for sure.