Carnevale, Venezia

For those of you who don’t know, Italy is 98% catholic. Which means there is always a reason to party.

The biggest party happens every year in Venice for the 3 weeks before lent. It is essentially a giant masquerade party on the streets. Knowing that it would be packed, we booked way in advance. Thank goodness. The city was at its peak capacity. We went on the very last weekend, which is the biggest weekend, so it was particularly insane.

The whole weekend is was a blur of strange shows including drag queens and giant bugs, DJ sets in packed piazzas, people dressed head to toe in insane costumes, and confetti. There were performers scattered about the piazzas. The city didn't sleep, and neither did we.

Minus the giant party, we did actually see some the entire city of Venice. It’s a beautiful city, my favorite in Italy at least. However, it really is sinking, so if you get the chance in your lifetime go see it. Every evening at high tide the water level rises and floods St. Peter's square to about knee high water (if you're vertically challenged like myself).

There are many small excursions you can do in Venice that explore other smaller islands near it. We took one that brought us to three different islands, including Murano, the glass blowing capital of Venice. We got to watch a demonstration and peek around the shop. It was pretty neat.

And finally a word of advice; it is A-Okay to take the slow regional train there for Carnevale but be prepared if you take it home. My friend Zach and I, being the cautious spenders that we are, opted for the slow train. The thing about it is, there are no assigned seats and they sell unlimited tickets. So the idea is that you go to the station, and when a train comes that is going where you need to go, you validate your ticket and hop on. When there are thousands of people trying to get out of the city at the same time, its chaos. The station was full of police trying to manage crowds on the verge of riots. I actually felt slightly afraid for my life, but thank God I had a guy with me to keep me safe