It’s vastelaovend again. Carnevale as they call it here in Italy. And the fact that I’ve just published this blog on Monday evening, means that unfortunately, I’m not standing somewhere in a dark but at the same time super colourful bar back home in Limburg, that I’m not having a beer in my hand (the only five days a year that I drink beer and I do actually like it), and that my mind is not wandering off in the midst of this loud bar thanks to a special mix of pure feelings of happiness, tiredness after already four full days of celebrating, singing songs that make me nostalgic and a bit of alcohol. Unfortunately, I also don’t hear my girlfriends arguing with hoarse voices that we really need to go and eat something. Alright, after this song then. After lots of doubts, I decided not to book those plane tickets home, after having checked Skyscanner for three weeks straight. Of course, I’m regretting this decision heavily by now, so the least I can do is to dedicate this blog to that beautiful, colourful and loving vastelaovend, the best party ever. Oh, and does Italy have anything to do with that at all? Of course it does!
During these years of study, I had to report a lot of funerals of grandmothers, migraine attacks and other highly unpleasant life events to my professors and peer students to justify my sudden absence during these five days. I know, it’s not the most educated thing to do, but let’s say that emergency breaks the law
It’s part of the deal when living abroad: occasionally you have to miss out on precious moments. And this is certainly not the first time, because of the past six years of vastelaovend, I was living abroad during three of them, although twice I managed to join in on the festivities for a day at least. Before that, I was living in Amsterdam for five years, and in terms of the level of ignorance that the most beautiful party in the world is taking place at that exact time in the south of the country, Amsterdam was even worse than any other place I’ve lived in. During these years of study, I had to report a lot of funerals of grandmothers, migraine attacks and other highly unpleasant life events to my professors and peer students to justify my sudden absence during these five days. I know, it’s not the most educated thing to do, but let’s say that emergency breaks the law. When I was sent to Frankfurt on a work assignment for a couple of months three years ago, I was quite disappointed that we didn’t get the days off, didn’t they celebrate carnival here too? However, as far as Karneval is concerned – as they call it in Germany – Frankfurt doesn’t come anywhere close to cities like Cologne or Düsseldorf. With my most contagious smile I managed to secretly negotiate with my German boss that I could take the Monday off, something which wouldn’t have been approved by the head office. But again: emergency breaks the law, and that Monday night I reluctantly dragged myself from the carnival parade in my hometown straight to the train station for a trip that would eventually take no less than five and a half hours due to a lot of delay around Düsseldorf and Cologne. It wasn’t hard to figure out what might have caused that delay. The next day – Tuesday and the final day of vastelaovend – I walked straight to the kitchenette of our Frankfurt office to make myself an extra strong coffee that should get me through the day. Unexpectedly I found something much better there. The party here was at least this well recognized that there were two large plates of typical carnival treats. One plate had a note ‘contains alcohol’, the other one had a note ‘without alcohol’. I’m sure you could guess from which plate I grabbed not one but two delicious pastries.
But when I tell my Italian friends about oùr vastelaovend and the way we celebrate it in the south of Holland showing them photos and videos, their mouths literally drop. Because to be honest, I think our vastelaovend is just something else, with no equivalents anywhere in the world
Carnevale is of course also a traditional Italian party, but the way it is celebrated varies greatly from region to region and city to city. In general, it’s mainly a children’s party. Children are dressed up as princesses and superheroes, get bags of confetti to throw around and are given typical sweets for carnival. In some cities it is a party for adults too, with impressive parades and beautifully dressed people. Everyone has seen those gorgeous images of the Venetian carnival. But when I tell my Italian friends about oùr vastelaovend and the way we celebrate it in the south of Holland showing them photos and videos, their mouths literally drop. Because to be honest, I think our vastelaovend is just something else, with no equivalents anywhere in the world in terms of craziness, the way we dress up and very particular traditions which are carried out every year again.
Immediately, I regretted having invited him. Because carnevale may be an Italian feast too, I was sure that the vastelaovend we celebrate had little to do with the refined Italian way of living. Oh God, what was he supposed to think?
January of last year, I had enthusiastically told a Neapolitan friend of mine to come and celebrate vastelaovend with us in my hometown, after he told me that he was staying in the Netherlands for three months for his studies. However, as those ‘three crazy days’ came closer, I got a little doubt. Because, dear God, would he understand, let alone appreciate this actually unexplainable party? I thought about those times my friends took shots of mayonnaise straight from a twenty-liter bucket, how my friends and I were skippy balling an entire afternoon in crazy outfits in the local bar, the hobby horse tournament we held in the middle of the street, and all those joekskapelle (little orchestras playing music) roaming the streets. And then there’s the music. All the songs sung in our dialect that everybody has known for decades already. I feared my Neapolitan friend would feel like a complete outsider. Immediately, I regretted having invited him. Because carnevale may be an Italian feast too, I was sure that the vastelaovend we celebrate had little to do with the refined Italian way of living. Oh God, what was he supposed to think? However, soon I would discover that my worries were completely unnecessary.
Luckily, we have three closets full of clothes for vastelaovend and while we pulled out one outfit after the other, il napoletano took in all his options critically. When we finally pulled out a golden green sultan suit his face lit up: this was going to be it!
Il napoletano insisted on coming over for vastelaovend anyway, so my mother prepared a nice bed for him in the living room as the rest of the house was already occupied. On Saturday my friend arrived, and I went to pick him up from the train station with a coloured face full of glitter and a purple wig, making me fear he wouldn’t even recognise me. To my surprise, he hardly seemed to notice my particular appearance, and he kissed me as enthusiastically on my cheeks as he would always do. In the meantime, my mother was worried about the lunch ‘because, oh God we have an Italian over’, so she literally stuffed the table with all kinds of delicious foods. When we served him a nonnevot by means of a dessert and we explained to him that this was a typical vastelaovend treat, he started laughing. This was just a ciambella, an Italian treat you find in every single bar. And indeed, he was right. Just this morning at the local bar I treated myself to such an Italian nonnevot, and I discovered it was really identical to ours. The next step of course was the dressing up part, and where my mother and I had prepared ourselves that we had to come up with an outfit for him – because of course he couldn’t know the traditions of ‘how to dress up in my hometown’ – nothing could be further from the truth. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted. Luckily, we have three closets full of clothes for vastelaovend and while we pulled out one outfit after the other, il napoletano took in all his options critically. When we finally pulled out a golden green sultan suit his face lit up: this was going to be it! He wouldn’t be a true Italian if he hadn’t come in a fine, wool designer coat that he couldn’t possibly wear to a pub with vastelaovend, but that problem was quickly solved with an old winter coat from my father. Once we arrived in town, I had prepared myself for the fact that I would probably had to entertain him a bit. I wanted to head straight to the square where the party was taking place, but he clearly didn’t agree. Because how could we start a whole day of partying without a caffè first? Good point. After this shot of espresso, it was finally time to mingle into the festivities. Here we go, were exactly my thoughts. I introduced him to my friends, who immediately renamed him MegaTobi and I actually barely spoke to him for the next few hours as he was completely occupied with meeting new people, dancing and getting us rounds of beer. Where my friends and I wanted to start the party this Saturday a little easy, after a pretty intense Friday on which we had been out for 10 hours straight, he didn’t want to know anything about it. So why didn’t we go all the way to the front close to the stage?
He and the chef were monitoring my friend closely as he took a first bite. With a not so convincing look at his face il napoletano managed to reassure the chef that the pizza was ‘quite okay’, which led to great hilarity of all the other guests, who had curiously been witnessing the moves of this stranger
After a couple of hours of partying we were a bit hungry and we decided to make a little pit stop at a snack bar. My friend and I introduced il napoletano to a very famous and greasy Dutch snack called a bamischijf. Slightly hesitating, he took a bite. But wait, this was just a fried tagliatelle ball? Didn’t we know we had to make this with rice? Right, the Roman supplì and Sicilian arancini are indeed almost the same only made with rice and these are super common snacks in Italy. Quickly after, we went to a bar and while the songs of Fabrizio, a locally famous singer, sounded from the boxes, the Neapolitan raised his eyebrows in amazement. Why was everyone singing the wrong lyrics to these songs? It wasn’t until that day that I discovered how many of our songs in our dialect are actually covers of Italian songs. Nevertheless, he didn’t let himself be distracted and he kept singing the original, Italian lyrics loudly. The highlight of the evening was when we went to an Italian place. This was one of those Italian restaurants you would normally never go to and that was run by anyone but Italians. When we ordered a pizza Margarita and mentioned that we had a Neapolitan among us, the faces of the waiter and the chef turned pale instantly, to the great amusement of my friend and me. This has been the only time in my life that a waiter has served a dish with the words “my apologies”. He and the chef were monitoring my friend closely as he took a first bite. With a not so convincing look at his face il napoletano managed to reassure the chef that the pizza was ‘quite okay’, which led to great hilarity of all the other guests, who had curiously been witnessing the moves of this stranger. But what a beautiful day it was. We ended up on the street in the middle of a joekskapel, every five minutes we bumped into family and friends that I introduced him to enthusiastically and I had to save him from a conversation with a lady who had grabbed her chance to freshen up her entire beginner Italian course she had taken somewhere in the nineties with this real Italian man from Naples dressed as a sultan.
I realised that this, in fact, is typically Italian, much more than the exuberant hand gestures or the adoration of la mamma
No doubt that il napoletano had fully enjoyed this emersion into our vastelaovend and tired but satisfied, I came to the conclusion that he had passed his very first vastelaovend with flying colours. In fact, he managed to add quite a touch of Italy to it as well. I realised that this, in fact, is typically Italian, much more than the exuberant hand gestures or the adoration of la mamma. Italians have the talent to always redirect things a little, without ever becoming arrogant or giving you the feeling that they know better. It’s a talent that stems from a strong conviction they’ve grown up with about how things should be done, whether it comes to eating habits, music or a sense of style. And yes, that sense of style even comes to the fore when picking out a vastelaoves outfit. Last Friday, when the party was in full swing back home, I texted him: “There are two things not right at the moment. The first thing is that you are in Naples, and the second thing is that I am in Rome”. His answer: “Absolutely true, although I am sure that the vastelaovend in Roermond has been cancelled by now, because it would simply never be the same without us”. Pretty confident those Italians, didn’t I say?
Hahah love this! Next year we should both go back, Dutch expats take VASTELAOVEND! 👏🌟