We had our second Getting to Know Arezzo yesterday. We got to learn about Carnevale, which was so
much fun. We started out in class
watching various videos about the different ways in which the towns practice
carnevale. Some towns do the typical
parades and balls, but there is one town that has the Battle of Oranges every
year. It is literally a bunch of people
that run around throwing whole oranges at one another! And only the people on
top of the wall are wearing masks! Tourists are invited to watch or even
partake in the battle, but the citizens really do it for themselves. There have to be some serious bruises after
that particular carnevale.
After we finished in the classroom, we took a bus to a
nearby town called Castiglion Fibrocci.
We visited a little workshop where local volunteers make the masks and
costumes for the town’s festival. The
people were so excited to see us and tell us about the masks and how they made
them. They even insisted (not that we
were objecting) on letting us try on the masks! They were so cute and so
excited. Not to mention these were
gorgeous, priceless, and one-of-a-kind works of art! Just trying on these masks
meant for such an important event probably wouldn’t happen back home in the
states.
Afterwards, we went to a museum that had some of the prize
winning costumes from past years. They
were just as gorgeous as the pieces that we had just seen at the workshop, but
infinitely more creepy. They had
actually painted eyes onto the manikins that the costumes were displayed
on. They were all through this little
house, in the alcoves and even at the bottom of a couple of staircases. They would definitely make an amazing monster
on Doctor Who! Beautiful, with that touch of creepy that puts it over the
edge.
After we got back to Arezzo, we went shopping on the Corso
Italia, the main street of Arezzo. We
went to a lot of stores, although all I bought was a pair of Timberland
booties. I needed a pair of shoes since
I’m already wearing through a pair of shoes that I have here with me. I also wanted a pair that would hold up over
the next few months with all the walking that I’ll be doing!
I was going to combine this post with what we did today, but
that will definitely run long so I’ll start a new one! In the meantime,
pictures!!!
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