That is in all honesty how I felt about dancing in the parade at Carnaval. I learned a lot about Carnaval and how the parade works the past couple weeks. I will give you a quick run-through. The parade is actually a competition. It is between different samba schools. Depending on how big the city is how many schools. Rio has 12 or so, we had five (which is a pretty decent size). Florianopolis is the capital of Santa Catarina, so it’s a pretty big Carnaval. Each school has a story that it is telling by the evolution of the costumes and floats. There is a king and queen of every school and the school that wins, there king and queen are the KandQ of Carnaval. It is a huge deal. People work on it year round. Designing the story, music, costumes, dances, floats, and it is all judged. Our school, Copa Lord was amazing. They won the year before and our costumes were phenomenal, as you can see. Our story was about Santa Catarina and told the story of her life (she was the saint the state was named after). We were last to go at the parade, which was four in the morning. Karly, Sam and I got our costumes, they informed us as we tried to stuff ourselves into the car. Later we learned that also meant they were the heaviest. Each school has a song they write that is about 1-2 minutes long and the band (battery) replays it over and over the whole 90 minutes your school is going down the street! Yes 90 min. So I decided that carnival was made for me, dancing in awesome and ridiculous costumes to the same song over and over! I loved every minute of it. When we got finished we walked back to the bus station as it was opening for the day and ate some breakfast while waiting for our bus. Then the bus came, Karly and Sam got on and I stood outside for ten minutes trying to get my wings off, unable to do so, and unable to ask the people passing me for help. Then the bus closed its doors, I yelled and got on in full costume. It was pretty hilarious. Then we rode the bus home while watching the sunrise. Got our suits and went to the beach. But the dancing in the parade was amazing! Phenomenal! We came in third (one of the floats broke down right at the end, that’s the reason were using). Our costumes were so huge and I about hurt some people with the wings. That was the hardest thing to dance in. especially because the huge parrots on my shoulders and the giant hat on my head would cling together and I could not turn my head to save my life. I really wanted to hurt them…. But I love Jefferson and W. All in all it was amazing, and I want to do it again one day!
In the photos: 1. Super trooper lights are gonna find you, 2. Karly, sam, and I with our shoulders and hats on, 3. walking home (after i broke my wings getting on the bus), 4. exhausted after dancing, 5. Afraid of W, 6. A little tired of green..., 7. us in our glory, wait our wings still werent on, but you can see Regan, Jeferson, W, Kennedy, (our parrots, we named them)
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