My neighbors have a nice psychotic son . Yesterday I saw him running in the garden wearing armor. I thought it was yet another manifestation of the demon that possesses him, then I realized that there is not an exorcist coming, but Carnival.
For all those who, like me, when someone abroad asks “Italian from where?”, answer “Near Venice”, the carnival in the lagoon city is an event not to be missed. This post aims to provide a couple of tips so that those who go to Carnival this year will feel sick the next day from drinking (and having had) too much. The alternative would still be sickness, but due to all the money that the Venetians manage to squeeze out of anyone who doesn’t live above smelly water.
Trains
To approach Venice during the days of Carnival you need to arm yourself with the spirit of a commuter. High elbows and no mercy for the fallen are necessary requirements to board the trains headed to the city. The best time to arrive is during the late afternoon, when the school groups of little Zorros and pirates size XS thin out. The ideal time for the return is instead the first train in the morning. At 5 you will be too stupid to realize that the passenger sitting next to you is a guy dressed as a penguin with a belly covered in vomit.
Masks
The Venice Carnival is like Facebook. There is so much bullshit and brilliant ideas in it that, to stand out, you have to avoid banality. Not that it makes sense in life to want to stand out at all costs. But Carnival is, by definition, the convention of the most eccentric and excessive aspects of life itself. Walking around with a mask stolen from an extra in Eyes Wide Shut is for losers. Pre-packaged costumes are for people with the imagination of a porn screenwriter. Preparing an original disguise is a good part of the carnival fun. You’ll see that, when an idiot in a Superman costume admires your Aperol bottle mask out loud, you’ll enjoy it a lot.
Photo
The prize for the most original masks is to be recognized, pointed out and called out by passers-by. If the costume is really ingenious, other types of requests also arrive. “Damn, you’re dressed up as a tic-tac box! Should we take a picture together?”, “Wow! You’re dressed as Overman! Can I give you a blowjob?”. They’re all ego-strokes. Preparing a costume that amazes is not only narcissism for its own sake, but also one of the few means of gratification for anyone who wants to express their creativity.
Fuel
Evidently, hundreds of people who spend the night in the company of humidity and slime must have a good fuel. Alcohol. Going to the Venice Carnival without getting drunk to the point of risking a swim in the canal is like being a child and never grazing a knee. Those who live without emotions are sicker than those who, having seriously fallen into that leptospirotic water, will truly give up on life.
Drunk
In the end, the best remain. When all the Batmans and cowboys have thrown in the towel, only the most original masks are found on the streets. Completely wasted. Lego men in pieces, the Twitter bird shot down inside a gondola, an Amy Winehouse deader than the real one. You glimpsed them at the bar while they were drinking a bottle of wine, two hours later they are in the square clinging to the Tavernello cardboard boxes. By now they are in tatters like their costumes. At this point, it’s not like you become friends, but you socialize. At parties, the veterans always establish that sense of closeness that comes from not being asleep in a pool of their own vomit. It’s a feeling that vanishes when they return home. Luckily. Because that guy dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan probably wasn’t all that right.
On your way to the station, it might be nice to take a look at Venice too. They say it’s pretty, especially at night, when tourists go back to their hotels to charge their SLRs. But maybe that’s just another rumor spread by those posh Venetians.