because I don't like to forget my friends

Spain is lucky. They basically get two holidays to dress up. The first is Halloween, obviously. And the second is Carnaval. Carnaval is basically like Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras on steroids. And in some parts of Spain, they celebrate it for two weeks. So the last weekend in February, every grade at Antonio Machado dressed up like the characters from Peter Pan, Hansel & Gretel, The Pied Piper, The Wizard of Oz, or Little Red Riding Hood. My fourth grade class dressed up as the characters from the Wizard of Oz. Lia is the Wicked Witch of the West and I'm Glenda.

 We spent the morning showing each other our costumes and explaining how we made them.

 Then we all went out to the playground, had a parade, and each grade performed a song or dance. Here I am with Leslie, the 3rd grade teacher I work with.

 Justin was a lumberjack from Hansel & Gretel and Denise was Prince Charming from Snow White.

 That evening I took a flight to Venice, Italy with my friend Michelle. We spent the rest of the weekend celebrating Carnaval Italian style. It's much, much classier let me tell you.

 For some reason, the public transportation ferry boats were very, very confusing to us. I wish I could blame it on being jet lagged. Our first night there we missed our boat about four times trying to decide which one we were supposed to take to get to our hostel. By day two, we were pros.

 The entire weekend, we saw so many people dressed up like this. Head to toe. It felt like a dream, like we'd time traveled. Venice is a beautiful, and I mean beautiful city that is impossible not to get lost in.

 And yes, there are gondolas and gondoleers (isn't that what the men who drive the gondolas are called?) everywhere!

 And there are fancy, over the top Carnaval masks everywhere too.

 And shops selling chocolates shaped like masks.

 We got a recommendation of where to have lunch from someone who worked at the hostel. We sat outside, ate delicious seafood pasta, and drank wine which was cheaper than the water we ordered. 

Friday night, there was a party for Carnaval at our hostel. We sat in the photo booth for a while and here are the best takes.

 We went to see a jazz band play before the party started. The lead singer was a chick from Louisiana whose name I wish I could remember because she was amazing. 

 The next day it rained all day. and I mean all day. It poured and didn't let up before the sun went down. So we managed to make it to the Guggenheim, like everyone else in Venice, because what else can you do on a rainy day but go to a movie or museum. 

 We made it across the bridge with the locks of love or love lockdown, just like in Paris. The weekend was amazing despite the horrible rain on Saturday. It was bittersweet because after that weekend, Michelle moved back to Texas. But, as one of my students so poignantly put it, "I like my friends and I draw pictures more beautiful. I like my best friend and I like my friend feel happy and they tell me we are near summer so I like that they remember me and I remember them. Because I don't like to forget my friends."