Well, welcome back to me!! I definitely have not blogged enough lately. My parents arrived in Rome on Saturday and with them they brought my beautiful new computer!! So happy about that! Now I can finally post pictures and blogs again. The problem is that it has been so long that I don't really remember what I've been doing. I'll start with Carnevale:
The day my computer died (2.5 weeks ago) I went to the opening parade for carnevale in Rome! It was a really beautiful day and Jillian and I decided to walk to the center from Monteverde. City center was pretty crowded and we walked around for awhile. Piazza del Popolo was packed and we were able to slightly see a flag throwing performance. We then went and bought masks as a souvenir store even though nobody around us was wearing them. Most of the kids around were in costumes, but all of the adults were boring and noble. The parade was really great! Mostly a bunch of Renaissance people on horses. There were a bunch of dancing stilt walkers too. We met this little girl who was dressed up as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She was really cute and nervous but then said in english that her name was Flavia and asked where we were from. She then got very shy and hid behind her dad. We talked to her a bit and got a great picture with her.
I don't really remember the rest of the week and had to go check what happened by reading my really short blog post from last week. I'll jump ahead to part two of carnevale.
The next weekend (last weeked, I guess) we decided to go to Viareggio because it is the second biggest carnival in Italy and is a lot closer, cleaner, and cheaper than Venice. We (Me, Kim, Will, and Adam) were planning on going on Saturday but then actually googled it and found out the parade for which it is famous was only on Sunday so we put the trip off for a day. It was completely worth it!! I had heard that there were cool floats, but these were just fantastic!!! They were huge with 100 people dancing on them and huge moveable parts that went out over the crowd. There was music and dancing and confetti! It was amazing. We took the train around 10 in the morning and got into Viareggio around 1. As soon as we left the train station we saw people in costumes. 
We walked around and wore our masks (everyone was in a mask or costume!!). On a little side street we saw a table set up outside a hispanic family restaurant/cafe and there was a father and his 5 or 6 year old son selling empanadas for a euro. The little boy was adorable and helped serve. We finally made it to the carnival area which was the street parallel the beach. The parade had not started yet so we walked around the beach for awhile. The parade started off with a bang (they shot off fireworks) and then went for about 3 hours. I really can't describe the scene this was! There was also a ferris wheel with basically no line so we watched part of it from up there. When it was done we went back and watched the sunset on the beach. Living on the east coast I very rarely have seen the sun set over the water and it was beautiful. The purple clouds went along the horizon and then blended with the mountains on the coast. It was a really warm day on the beach but we could still see snow on the mountain tops. After hanging on the beach, we were all really craving seafood and so went and got a quick dinner before catching out 9 o'clock train home. All in all, Carnival in Italy is amazing! Do not miss it.
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