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| Throwing confetti |
In the USA, we don't usually celebrate Carnival, with the exception of New Orleans, which celebrates Fat Tuesday (
Mardi Gras). Before coming to Rome, I had always associated the notion of Carnival with Brazil, actually. Venice too, perhaps, if I had given it a little thought. But it turns out that many places with a large Catholic population celebrate Carnival, which occurs right before Lent begins. Rome hosts a
10-day celebration throughout the city, consisting of street performances, parades, and many horse-centered events, including races. Our family has not gotten to many of the events, but we have seen some masked and costumed street performers, thrown lots of confetti, ridden on a carousel, seen a puppet show, and tomorrow Indigo is dressing up for
Martedi Grasso - there is an all-school
Festa di Carnevale at her preschool. And maybe we'll let her stay up a little later to see the end-of-Carnevale fireworks.
The puppet show that we saw last weekend is not actually part of Carnevale festivities, but runs year-round. It's called
Teatro di Pulcinella Gianicolo, and is one of the few open-air puppet theaters around, and has been putting on performances since the 1950's. You can watch the whole 15-minute performance
here (it's in Italian, of course).
Here are a couple more pictures of Indigo, enjoying her carousel ride, and admiring her "Queen Dress" for the party tomorrow. And after tomorrow, it's Lent...I wonder how things will go, now that the Pope is resigning? If he steps down on February 28th, and they don't have a successor until the end of March, that doesn't leave much time to get someone in by the High Holy Week, culminating in Easter (March 31st this year). This will be a crazy month. Popetacular!
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| I'm on a boat! |
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| Queen Indigo |
