Carnivale

So yesterday I ventured out to Piazza del Popolo to check out the goings on on a beautiful, sunny Sunday.  It is carnival season here in Rome and Piazza del Popolo is where all the public activities are being held.  Even though I knew it would be crowded I still didn't expect as many people as I saw.  If you've been keeping up with my musings you remember that this piazza has three streets heading off in three different directions.  Well, I came up the middle street-Via del Corso-and about a half mile or more before the piazza it was already wall to wall people.  And these were the people leaving.  At first I thought that I had missed all the fun but then realized that, along with me, there were still scores and scores of people heading to the piazza.  I got there and it was packed.  Normally I am not a fan of crowds like this but about half the people there were about 7 and well behaved.  So, whereas in America I would feel claustrophobic because everyone else in the world is taller than I am and I wouldn't be able to see a thing, here, where I am a normal height for an adult, I had no problem seeing through and over the crowd-again thanks to half of them being very, very short...I mean young. 

I found my way to the middle of the piazza and stood on the base of the Obelisk in the center.  From there I had an excellent view of the arena where any moment now they'd start the horse show.  Any moment...or not.  Actually, two youngsters did some simple riding tricks, getting the horse to kneel, riding two at the same time, not falling off and breaking bones.  But otherwise the announcer just talked and talked and talked while five horsemen rode around in circles.  I got bored so I ventured on which is a good thing because otherwise I would never have seen the cute, young men on stilts spitting fire.  Nor would I have seen the 'Punch and Judy' show.  All in all it was a wonderful evening.