Being immortal has its perks...

So last night was our big promenade. Turns out I wasn't a royal, I was a girl of spring. To be specific, google image Botticelli's Primavera. We had long flowing dresses that went every which way in the wind. My other friends were actually the royals and they looked beautiful! Another plus is that we all had great seats for the night's festivities. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were told that we needed to get dressed between 7:30 and 7:45. We got to where the costumes were and were told that we weren't needed for another hour. Ok, cool, there was a bunch of fun stuff to look at anyway. We walked around a bit and started to walk back to the palazzo when we heard someone call "Raggaze! Raggazze!" (Girls! Girls!) It was the man who told us we had an hour. Turns out he was wrong, we needed to get dressed now. (Mind you, this was all in Italian. We managed to figure out what he was saying. Finally a year of Italian is paying off.) So we did and the woman who was in charge of it all (wife to the man who told us the wrong time. Her name was Paola.) kept calling "Americane! Americane! Raggazze Americane!" Gotta love feeling a couple dozen pairs of eyes on you when she does that. We all gathered where the procession was going to start and then I was brought to a different location. Turns out all us Primavera girls were in the front, just behind the drummers and trumpeters. Woah. Once again, this is all in Italian and I haven't got a clue what is going to happen. All I knew was that I was a painting. Fair enough. So the trumpeters start their thing and then the drummers and then we start walking. We walk very slowly in these nice straight lines towards the piazza. When we finally get there, the royals sit in the chairs on the edge of the piazza and the Primavera girls are placed in this little white wrought iron gazebo on display for all to see and adore (by this point, my nerves are pretty much shot because not only were there several professional photographers but also a cameraman). All around the piazza, these bleachers have been set up so that people can see. So there is quite a bit of pomp and circumstance that happens. When these Italians take a step back into the Renaissance, they do NOT mess around. Drummers and trumpeters play their hearts out. Then there is a flag throwing demonstration (on of my personal favorites), a dance featuring any number of girls between the ages of 8 and 18 and one little boy, a tug of war, horse parade, a mini play in which there are flaming swords and the man kills either his beloved or his daughter (I'm not sure which), and a belly dancing show. Whew! So after all of this, I am told we can go. Little did I know that "go" meant "go walk around the city...twice...in heels...on cobblestones...for over an hour." Now, being an immortal was wonderful and beautiful and all...but I was ready to go home and get warm (did I mention it got very chilly?) So we finally got to stop, watch a few fireworks and go get our clothes back on. We told Paola that we had a wonderful time, which we definitely did, and went back to the palazzo for some nutella. Oh what a night...