Allison's Wonderland

CARNEVALE!!! Its that’s time of year. Carnevale is a Venetian holiday which has spread throughout Italy. It’s kind of like Halloween where everybody dresses up, but without the spooky ghosts and witches. It’s less dark. My problem was coming up with an outfit. Jen had an awesome mask that she picked up in Colorado before she left, but I was stuck with zero, zip, nada. Me and some of the other Au Pairs decided we wanted to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that idea fell flat when we couldn’t find any costumes at all. We looked for gold dresses and green tights for about a week and found zilch. In the afternoon on Friday, Jen and I went walking around Villanova and I found this awesome mask for only 4.90. But Italians are like Mexicans in the fact that they have a siesta type thing. The shop was closed from 12:00-3:30. I’m not sure how anybody can run a business that way, but they do it here. So I didn’t get my mask because we had to pick up Mattia from school and I didn’t want to make him walk all that way with me just for a silly mask. Oh well. Saturday was the actual Carnevale holiday and Jen and I made our way up to Prato on Friday night with the Nonne and Mattia.

Saturday Jen and I decided to go snowboarding and skiing. Jen boarding and me on skis. I was hoping we would be able to borrow a snowboard for her, but that didn’t happen so Jen had to rent. We had a rough morning just with the fact we had to carry all my ski stuff down the hill to the bottom. Once we got there, I couldn’t get my skis on. Also we didn't have an ID for Jen to rent the snowboard, so the lady was so kin and just wrote our names on a piece of paper after I told her I was Simona's Nanny. The line for the lift pass was absolutely horrendous and then the line to get on the ski lift took us about 30 minutes just to get through. In all the madness of trying to get on the ski lift (if you’ve read my previous blog you’ll know just how much I love ski lifts) I lost a pole and the guy coming behind me had to get it for me. I have a problem getting on ski lifts and Jen has a problem getting off. Once we got to the top of the hill Jen kinda did a face plant and in trying to get her balance she grabs me making me almost fall down with her. Serious rough morning. All we wanted to do was ski/snowboard!!! Finally made it on the slope. Jen was having a little bit of difficulty with boarding just because she hadn’t done it in about two years. So I went down ahead and waited for her at the bottom. Once she made her way down her knees were really bothering her due to the incident in West Side Story several years ago, so we decided to take a break and grab some coffee and a brioche. Always a good idea.

Once we were finished, the line for the ski lift wasn’t too bad. I was feeling confident so I decided to do a more difficult run and meet Jen at the bottom again. Not sure how good of an idea that was. I was tooling along doing pretty good and then the slope got pretty steep and again I hit a big patch of fluffy snow. I seriously lost control of my legs and just started flying. My right ski somehow ended up over my left ski and I started going towards the edge where there’s just a drop off. So I tried to swerve back right. At this point I’m going super fast with one ski over the other and low and behold there’s like a 6 year old kid just up ahead. So I swerve left to try and miss him, but to no avail I side swipe the poor guy. I think I might have gotten him with my pole too. YIPES! Now I’m concerned about a kid I just knocked over meanwhile I’m still out of control. That’s when I hit another patch of fluffy snow and instead of the skis crossing over each other, they just fly right over my head. I wiped out like I had never done before. I wish I could’ve seen myself because I know I would’ve been pointing and laughing. I ate snow, which kind of tasted good because I was seriously thirsty. Once I finally stopped rolling, I looked back to see if the kid was alright. He seemed to be fine with no broken bones or anything. The kid's Dad was helping him up from the ground and giving me dirty looks. I kept yelling back, “Is he okay? Is he okay?” and then I just kept getting the looks. Oh well… the kid skied down to the bottom just fine. Once I got myself up, I was all twisted and I fell over again. I think that may be the last time I attempt that slope. I felt like the biggest idiot ever. Looked for Jen at the bottom because I thought she probably made it down before me. It was a beautiful day for skiing so I definitely could not complain. There was just WAY too many people out.

Once I got to the bottom after my terrible wipe out I look up at the other slope to see if Jen's coming down. I see her pink pants coming and I wave to her so she sees me. She's coming in pretty fast and starts going left toward the ski lift. She almost hits a guy standing in line, but she sits on her butt to avoid a collision. That's when she breaks the bindings of her rental snow board. Like I said, BAD morning. Haha...I'm really glad we went though and both of us had a good time. So worth it! The lady at the rental shop was super nice and didn't charge Jen extra or anything. Later that evening Jen and I got all dressed up and went and danced it all out. It was a really fun night and surprisingly there were not very many people dressed up. Glad I didn’t wear Simona’s Minnie outfit or Mattia’s Pirate Wig!!