I'm not dead

Sorry I've become such a bad updater. A quick update.

I've now seen the Colosseum by day,

by night, which, given its history, was an oddly romantic sight:
But my favorite was watching it turn sunset pink in warm, spring weather:
Also, in Rome, we saw the Pantheon, the Roman forum (a mall of ruins, including where Ceasar was cremated), the palace, the catacombs, the Vatican and the Pope:
We happened to catch his weekly address to the world and, because of a recent protest over him speaking/not speaking at a university, all of St. Peter's Square was filled with people supporting Il Papa. The next day, it was on the front page of all Rome's newspapers.

On a whim the following weekend, we decided to take a train up to Venice for the last weekend of Carnevale. Carnevale is where Mardi Gras in New Orleans came from, except Carnevale has been going on for centuries and it lasts a month before Lent, not just a week. Everyone wears masks, elaborate costumes and parties. I have never seen more tourists. Sadly, however, it was extremely cold and rainy and we had trouble on the trains getting back. But it was still amazing.

A picture of soggy Venice:
Below is (l to r), Natalie, me and Aine in front of The Grand Canal and the Rialto bridge in our Carnevale masks. We searched long and hard for the perfect masks and finally found them in a little upstairs store, where the artist was working. She shook our hands and thanked us over and over again for coming into her shop and loving her masks (which we did.)

Later, we would come back to Venice with USAC and that bridge behind us covered in tourists would be completely empty. That night, however, we had to walk single file, holding on to backpack handles because there were so many people. Here is a photo of the Rialto on that later trip. Every single one of the people in that photo is part of USAC (look for Natalie and Aine being silly):
At night, Carnevale really came alive. We watched acrobats, live music, thousands of people dressed up, drinking and dancing in the famous and historical St. Mark's Square. If you've ever seen pigeons flying up out of a giant piazza in Italy, that's probably St. Mark's, site of public hangings, people dangling in cages, Doges, Lord Byron in cafes and us.

Here are just a few of the costumes we saw. Carnevale costumes tend toward the historical, even children are dressed up as musketeers and princesses, not Spiderman and Barbie. These first two were my absolute favorite. Aine took the picture and, if you look closely, you can see me and Natalie (sans masks) peeking our faces over their shoulders.

This picture came out a little blurry, but there is a man (on the left) dressed as a woman and a woman (on the right) dressed as a man with dogs in a baby carriage. Very absurd and very Carnevale.

This cafe full of revelers was spotted just as we left the square to catch our train back home. Most people (as you can tell by their expressions in the earlier photos) were completely deadpan, gazing around calmly at all the people taking their pictures. It was as much performance art as it was about their costumes. In this last picture, the man on the left is grinning because I stuck my tongue out at them when I took the picture.This stage was set up on one end of the square and just sat there glistening all day.In the evening, we left the square to find a bathroom and came back to see everyone singing along wordlessly to a cover of the White Stripe's "Seven Nation Army" while lights flashed all over.

Some part of the crazy light show. The theme for Carnevale was the senses: each part of the city was supposed to represent one of the five, with the busiest center of party activity being the mind, hence the brain. These lights and images were projected on all the buildings around the square, as well as the famous clock tower and basilica.

These are the acrobats that later performed, leaping and somersaulting off a platform on the stage. They vaulted around on trampolines and all the while, crazy techno music played and lights flashed everywhere.

St. Mark's Basilica in the lights of Carnevale:

Below is St. Mark's lit up by sunlight, on our return to Venice. Below that is the square, stripped of its stage and filled with disgusting pigeons instead.






And finally (for today), some incredibly annoying and crappy videos of the Pope and the Carnevale performance from my digital camera. (Stephen's answer to my question during Carnevale, lost to dying batteries was, "Badass.")