Kiddie Carnival!

Hi, all!

It's a peaceful Sunday morning here in the tropics, and all week the high is supposed to be about 87 F. I have little Stardust on my shoulder, and I'm still excited that I have internet at home. The electricity went off for just long enough for me to utter a curse, and then it came right back on. Yay!

So...yesterday was an exciting adventure. I went with H. (Girlblue) to Port of Spain. First we stopped at a sushi place and had their buffet. This is what was on my plate.


And of course we went for several trips until we were stuffed. Next we thought we'd go up toward the Queen's Savannah Park to see if the Kiddie Carnival was happening today. H. wasn't sure, but thought it might be, and we struck gold! Sure enough, we got there in time to see some of the most elaborate and beautiful costumes I've EVER seen in my life.

Check these costumes out:















All I can say is that I can't even imagine how people drink rum and keep dancing during the actual Carnival because all we could do is keep drinking water because it was so hot out there and we weren't even out there for that long! :D

Anyway, we also tried some vendor food, and let me see if I can get this right. There were these little dough balls (savory, not sweet) with chutney sauce on them that start with a P. Ah, wait. I shall look it up in the new book that H. got for me just afterwards -- Cote ci Cote la, a Trinidad and Tobago dictionary. :-)) Phoulorie balls, that's what they're called. :-) Anyway, we had those, AND I got a snowcone that had the usual syrup sprayed on ice, but also had condensed milk, which made it very rich and sweet. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but I did. But I couldn't finish it, it was too rich.

On the way out, we saw a lot of steel pans being set up. We stopped and got a bit of an education.



They look a bit like garbage cans, and these, as I recall, are tenor-bass pan.

The ones in the following pic that the young men are playing are tenor pan. Notice how much smaller they are:



After that, we went on a quest to find a purple t-shirt for H's daughter. That quest was unsuccessful, but we did go to the bookstore, where that famous dictionary was gotten and I also got a book on Trinidad and Tobago folklore, which believe me is going to be very useful in my researching for my book. Anyway, we soon headed home after that, and I can say that it was a really fun and fulfilling day!