Oh, Bob. You always know what to say.

     Yesterday, we took a trip into town to get Brandy groomed. He was turning into quite the Rastafarian, courtesy of his soon to be dreadlocks, so we thought it would be best to put a stop to his transformation before we found him hot-boxing the downstairs as the melodious strains of Bob Marley made their way through the hazy air. Plus, he had been shedding on everything, but that’s really beside the point. After dropping him off, Ornella had to run to her brother’s house with Andrea, so she thought she would drop me and the girls off at a festival that was nearby. It was along the bank of the Adige, and she was fairly certain she had been to this same event a few years back and remembered having a great time, so she was excited as she sent us off, gifting us with 10 euros for gelato. We only had an hour, which at the moment seemed not nearly enough time for the adventures we had in store, but as we step across the threshold of the gated festival, my mind panicked at the thought of being here a whole hour! Ornella had described to us a place full of food vendors, stalls filled with wonderful assortments of clothing, live bands, happy, smiling families, and maybe even an attractive boy or to for my benefit. The scene before me, however, was none of those things.
     It was like in the movies, where something horrible happens or the character is has walked right into a trap, and you can see the realization of the situation settle on the character: The light grows dim, the wind howls, and the only sound heard is that of an unknown child, laughing in the distance. I’ve only experienced this feeling a few times in my life; the last time was when I road tripped to Washington a few years back with some of my friends. The city we were headed to was, at the time, small enough that it didn’t have any great hotels, so we thought it’d be more fun to stay in a hostel instead. As we drove up the hostel’s gravel driveway, the trees became more dense, the car fell into an ominous silence, and I could swear I heard a scream from within the dark woods surrounding us. The hostel came in view, and it didn’t quiet any of the fears I had recently acquired. In fact, it only made them worse. The rusty, padlocked barn, the decrepit RV leaning against the home, the windows so covered in filth you couldn’t see into them (I wondered if this was done on purpose), the urine stained bedding we were given, the piles of garbage creating a single path to each room, and the request of the owner of this forsaken establishment that one of the girls help him cut some firewood ‘out back’. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well that night. We all came out alive, however, and it became fodder for a few good stories, so in the end it was worth it.

Here's a picture from that night. Notice the terror in our eyes.

     Sadly, yesterday’s experience is still too fresh for me to look back on fondly. We walked through the gate, on a gravel road- by the way, to see a strange assortment of tented stalls filled with… Well, I’m still not quite sure. The age range of the people around us was roughly 20 – 50, but they all were attired in the same fashion: Long, boho skirts, linen trousers for the men, loose, gauzy tops, sandals, chunky, wooden jewelry, and even a turban headdress every now and then. The smell of the air reminded me of a Weezer concert I went to back in 2008, and the abundance of glazed over eyes and ‘PACE’ (peace) flags heighten my suspicion of what this festival was really about. And yes, if you’ve started wondering, Bob Marely did happen to be playing over the loudspeaker.
     Now, it wouldn’t have been a big deal if it was only me who had stumbled on the place, but I had in my care both Elena and Laura, who kept wondering why I wouldn’t let them run off on their own, or go pet the dog with the foam around its mouth, or why they were the only kids around. The lack of gelato booths was also a big disappointment for them. The location was, like I said earlier, on the banks of the Adige, but it was also an area where they hold Scouting day camps. I found a trail that looked the least uninhabited by the Italian Hippies, and found a place to hide out until the hour had passed. The girls were tired and hungry, so they weren’t too happy about the situation but I didn’t know what else to do. Laura checked my watch every 5 minutes and Elena kept running off with the poutiest look I had ever seen, but I managed to keep them alive, so I’d consider hiding in the woods a success.
     Eventually, 4:30 came, we were picked up, and I never once was tempted to look back as we drove away. Ornella felt so terrible about leaving us there that after we had picked up our newly de-dreadlocked dog, she took us to the nearest gelateria and bought us all some gelato. So really, it was worth it.