“After that bear, we’re going through”

I love this quote from our ‘girls weekend’ and 2009 Viareggio carnival adventure in Italy (near Pisa).  It sums up the scene perfectly as we pressed our way through a crowd of clowns, smurfs, ‘toilet paper rolls’, ‘French maids’, ‘mafia gangsters’ and some very real looking ‘Jack Sparrow’ pirates.  (Impressive – Italian men don’t need to work very hard to look the part – they got the looks AND they don’t mind eye make-up!)  

“Why are there so many furry animals (e.g. a bear, leopard, lion, giraffe…), smoking?!” a friend mused sipping her beer in a plastic cup leaning against a stand selling speciality carnival wafer-like sweets and popcorn. This was just the first night. Little did we know what to expect the next day…

It turns out floats are big business in Viareggio.  The people of Viareggio build huge paper-mâché puppets and floats in hangar-like buildings by the sea, often taking a full year to bring these enormous floats to fruition. Many of the figures satirise public and political figures and are paraded through the streets on set days during the month under the watchful eye of Viareggio’s carnival mascot, Burlamacco. The floats carry a few hundred people in costume dancing and singing to loud Italian carnival songs in the shadow of huge moving, animated puppets – eyeballs rolling, bones rattling, gorilla arms reaching towards the crowd… (People inside the floats manoeuvre the weights to prevent the puppets from toppling over.)

We learned carnival is also a licence to play practical jokes.  This includes throwing confetti (think of us wading through confetti snow when the parade was over), the fun of spraying silly string and tagging unassuming people with shaving cream. (errr… I know nothing about a group of rowdy teenagers targeting my black wool coat but luckily my friends were well prepared and had tissue ready to remove the trace…)

It would not be Italy without the delight of fabulous Italian food for virtually nothing.  Grilled sea bass, fresh octopus salad, spaghetti vongole… several bottles of montepulciano Tuscan wine and prosecco of course!  

You can’t help but take secret pleasure and satisfaction in seeing the usually chic, fashion-conscious Italians look absolutely ridiculous.  The Venetian carnival seems much more civilized, but not in Viareggio.  The pink and purple hair and clown-like hats had an amusing resemblance to German carnival in Cologne.  If you looked really carefully, the Gucci, Armani and Prada sunglasses were still there…

My favourite part of the weekend? It’s hard to say.  Taking in the scene with good friends, actively participating in the revelry around us through the eyes of our carnival masks and enjoying the laughs made it well worth the journey.

Oh yes, and there was that wink and mint thrown to me by a very handsome ‘Jack Sparrow’ Johnny Depp-like pirate who caught my eye from a float… Viva il Carnevale di Viareggio, Viva Italia!

The beauty of laughter

You have to put on your best pair of rose coloured glasses and consider the glass half full in times like this to keep perspective and a sense of humour.  Friends are doing an amusing job of keeping me laughing as we navigate through excruciatingly long days, egos and uncertainty at work.

Laughter and camaraderie have a way of lightening the load and reinforcing you are not alone:

- We laughed until we cried testing the new ‘telepresence meeting’ room this week. London has never looked so close as we covered our eyes, yelling ‘nOOOO!’ to avoid examining the nose hairs of our comedian colleague who seemed to delight in pressing his face against the camera. (I can tell you high definition television takes on a whole new meaning!)

- Arriving in my office to see ‘Happy Birthday!’ on the white board in big letters, my desk covered in presents and a fabulous birthday book reminding me the day was mine and to live it up.

February birthday cakes

- Another friend winding me up about my birthday all day making me think it was forgotten yet again, until I received an email with a ridiculously cheesy ‘Hippo Birdie to Ewe’ tribute just before midnight.  

- My Flemish officemates teaching me Dutch: (translated) ‘a man with an ape’, ‘I did NOT sleep well’, ‘I love you’.  These are the phrases of the week…

- Borrowing a random lady’s mexican sombrero in a bar in Brussels (when she wasn’t looking), passing it around, taking pictures of all five of us, only to return it without her realising it….  followed by the great ‘frites’ escapade in search of Belgian fries and mayonnaise at 2.00 AM on a Thursday.  (We finally found an open friterie in the red light district on the suggestion of one savvy New York-based friend who ‘had never spent much time there’.) The owners were so amused by us, we ended up with free portions. (I am still finding frites in my cream coloured car interiour where no one is ever allowed to eat but it was worth it!)

- The Italian carnival trip last weekend with its own priceless adventures and laughter deserves a post of its very own.

- And so much more…

Yes, laughter heals and makes life all the more entertaining.  It’s been a good couple weeks.