Carnival day

I have many great memories of carnivals, parades and fetes. When I was a child we went to the local procession every year. I remember them throwing sweets out to us and my dad having bags of coppers for us to put in the buckets. They're no longer allowed to throw things out to the crowd due to health and safety and if there were any buckets to throw money in to, I wouldn't have noticed today. Today I went to my local carnival - this was different than any year before as I am now at uni and so in an entirely different town.

When I say I wouldn't have noticed the buckets, it's not because I was too enraptured with the floats and costumes - it's because I'm not tall, I was near the back and I could barely see anything. Though what I did see was pretty impressive.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the town and park where the rest of the carnival was taking place. In all honesty, I was disappointed. Other than the parade, I didn't see anything visual at all. There was every kind of music, blasting from loud speakers on every other road - even when I went home, I could still hear it blaring into my room.

But by news standards, it was probably considered a great success. The weather held out - so much so that I now have a red tinge to my skin and spent the day sweltering, unable to truly enjoy anything (though it was a great excuse to wear my sunglasses) and many, many people turned up. Again, too many for me to be able to enjoy anything - hence being unable to see much of the parade.

Does anyone really enjoy these carnival days? Is everyone walking around, wishing they didn't have to put up with the masses shoving them around and too many music stations, that all they can hear is noise - or is it just me? The worst of it is, I know that next year I will go once again in the hope that it will be as good as I remember from when I was a child and if I haven't completely forgotten how exhausting it was this year, I'll still hope for the best. Maybe carnivals simply exist for those who are in them (I used to be in the parade at one point and loved it, or at least I loved the preparation for it) and for children, and the rest of us just show up because there's nothing better to do.