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Listening to: Jesus Christ Superstar
Feeling Like: I’m up there with him

Ah, another year, another Marted� Grasso, or Mardi Gras, where I’m from. Fat Tuesday. The day before all your sacrificing, or Lent, must begin. Here in Italy, it’s called the quaresima (kwa-REH-z-mah), and people don’t seem to be as gung-ho about it as they are in the States. In fact, if there had been a Lent category in the Olympics, we probably would have won. Lots of people who aren’t Catholic participate in the sacrificing for 40 days, because hey, if I do it and lose some weight, I’m better off, right?

But before you can start….there’s Mardi Gras.

Therefore, party like hell and induldge. While you can.

Mine had all the makings of a memorable Mardi Gras, a year to rival any other.

Towards the end of the night, your stale beer breath, blurred vision and seriously reddened eyes. The people surrounding you either going into a stupor or hysteria, and therefore giggling from one side of the room and silence from the other. A few getting cranky and just wanting to go home already.

Except, I was at work. Until 3am.

Granted, around 4pm we had taken a break with some chiacchiere which I mentioned in an earlier post, and we also broke open a few bottles of Barbera sparkling wine which were quite potent. This wine resulted in someone saying, “that’s Sara, she’s American and she says things pretty directly” and me responding “if you have a half hour I can say it the Italian way” but it was a friendly conversation, nonetheless.

But after our short break, it was back to work. A client had a site redesign as well as a contest for March 1, so it had to go online at midnight, according to contest rules. Didn’t you ever wonder if people subscribe to a contest the night before because the web team put it online that night and went home? Well, they don’t.

Since it was a big site, there were about 8 of us “partying” together. A pizza dinner break with some warm beer (see client) didn’t help things much.

Luckily I didn’t have to take a taxi home, and had accomodations here in Milan. The accomodations were right across the street from a lovely old church with a schoolyard. Children were playing in it when I went to pick up the keys earlier in the day. That was when I didn’t know about the evil that is the church bells. As in, every half hour. As in, I’m a light sleeper. Really light.

So already at 7am I was cursing their existence and remembering my days back in Trastevere with Santa Maria in Trastevere and her church bells every 15 minutes. Luckily, I got used to them and could sleep through them after a while.

Sleep is good. I’ll be looking for some tonight. Time to leave work.