Carnival - by Creed Braton

I hope that all of you watch the Office - and if you don't then you should. It's an amazing show full of laughs. That is the inside joke about my title. But enough plugging the best show ever...

Yesterday was Carnival. For those of you in the States - Mardi Gras/Hallowween. For me, it was never anything that I looked forward too. Fat Tuesday usually was something that I only celebrated in French Class, and this would have been the first year that I could have attended Muncie Gras - holler for BSU.

Okay, so yesterday our group headed to Ascoli Pecino for the day. When we arrived around 9 am we took a quick tour around the city. It mostly reminded me of Macerata, but it's a flat down in between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea. It was fairly warm so we weren't freezing as we went into the many different churches, theaters, gardens, etc. Filaberto ended our tours rather early so that we could have enough time to enjoy the festivities that were beginning around 3 pm.

My friends and I went to a small restaurant for lunch. We walked in and all sat down at a round table. In the background Bold and the Beautiful was playing, so that made me laugh out loud, literally. Hearing the American actors dubbed voices makes any show more interesting. As I glanced around I noticed the cutest 7 year girl sitting a table all by herself eating lunch. She finished soon and took her plate into the kitchen. Then she re-set the table and told this older gentleman to come and take the table. I believe that he also worked at the restaurant. He began a conversation with my friend Kacey and soon enough - through broken English and Italian - we had a bottle of Red Wine sent over to us for lunch. It was very funny and he continued to talk to us for the rest of our lunch. After we finished, he got up and gave us all kisses on the cheek and sent us on our way.

Carnival was upon us. Families were bringing out their kids and parent were dressed up as well. Every girl is a princess and every little boy is either Spiderman, Batman, or Superman. There were street vendors selling different kinds of fried foods and candy. Street performers were on every corner yelling over their loud speaker systems to drown out the people next to them, and in turn yelling to drown out the people next to them. Music was coming from the remaining loud speakers and people would randomly break into dance.

Now, all of that was amazing...but my favorite part of Carnival is the interaction between everyone. There are two things that are socially acceptable. Throwing confetti and silly string. You can silly string anyone you want and everyone thinks that it is hilarious. Whitney got into a confetti fight with an 80 year man. This morning I woke up and I was still finding confetti in all of my clothes.

If you ever have a chance, go to Italy for Carnival. Forget New Orleans and go to Italy. It's a once in a lifetime experience.

Miss you all,
Audrey