Anjani

Musings

I’ll Celebrate Anything

Posted by on Aug 3, 2014

Last night in Fazana we celebrated the Sardella Festival. Fifteen vendors set up tents, tables, and chairs on the street, fired up huge grills and filled refrigerators with beer. They worked all day till the wee hours of the morning, feeding thousands of hungry sardine lovers. You can’t imagine how tasty a dozen of those finger-sized fish are, grilled and drizzled with a parsley-garlic-olive oil pesto and served on a paper plate with a hunk of bread.

Four bands played as loud as their amps allowed, but the main act set up on the piazza with a 20′ stage, serious lighting, and a wall of speakers….mind you, this was about 40′ from my back door. I knew it would be loud by the volume levels at soundcheck…but I didn’t factor in the hellaciously loud sound system of the B-Boy dance troupe set up 20′ away from my front door.  By 10:30 I had danced enough and ate enough, and so I retreated to my living room silently thanking whoever designed triple paned windows. And still, it was loud inside. Branko, his wife Denise, and their two kids Anton and Anica also took refuge with me but we were all pretty wiped out. They left at 11:34pm, as Branko remarked, “Just twenty-six minutes to go!”

Well, no, not even close. At midnight the fireworks started just another 40′ further from the piazza, and I really enjoyed it…and the band played on….and on. I thought, “Oh, it must be going on till 12:30?” and then, “Ok, 1:00?” At 1:30am I was really tired and frankly irritated, when they kicked into Proud Mary, and something just switched on in my being and I couldn’t resist singing the choruses and dancing around the house. And then yeah, why not? Sweet Home Alabama. You’re The One That I Want. Blue Suede Shoes. Walking On Sunshine. She Loves You. It was remarkable to me that a European audience could sing all of the lyrics, when I barely remembered the choruses. Then the band played a long string of Croatian hits I wasn’t familiar with, so I took a shower at 2:15am and got into bed and prayed fervently for an electrical outage. Instead, by some other miracle of God, I fell asleep despite the cacophony and only awoke briefly around 3:30am to the sounds of the stage being struck down.

My last thought before drifting off was that I was really, really looking forward to sleeping in. But alas, on this Sunday Catholics celebrate the Annunciation, and at 8am the church bells pealed for a entire minute, which is longer than eternity in decibel years. So I got on with the day, and now I’m gearing up for a jazz festival in Bale–just a twenty minute drive from here–which also happens to be the town where my favorite restaurant, La Grisa is. Whatever happens, I know I will be having black truffle ravioli for dinner, so cheers to that!

And yes, I’m happy the new cd is being downloaded all over the world, and that is a kick to see. The website was also translated into Croatian (thanks to Natasha Nuhanovic!) and that is a cool milestone to celebrate and be grateful for.  Hope you’re all enjoying summer…xoxA

1 Comment

  1. Hi Anjani,

    Boy, does this ever sound familiar – just like the first night of our honeymoon in the little town of San Francisco (aka San Pancho), Mexico. We arrived on the first night of a week long celebration of the patron saint (much to our surprise) after a long wedding day/short night/long day of traveling.

    Add to your story above the roosters & pigs at the next house (about 15 ft from our window), the additional fireworks at 5am to call the Holy to 6am Mass, and the demolition crew that showed up at 7am at the concrete house across the street with sledgehammers.

    Every night, all week.

    And then the BIG celebration on our last night there. Crazy scary dangerous fireworks. Full moon had the waves pounding into the beach so hard the windows rattled. If you could hear them over the rest of the racket.

    Well, at least we had things we could tell the relatives and friends about the honeymoon when we got home.

    I don’t know if you remember me from your days in Radiance, but I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. Congrats on the new album! Glad to hear you’re doing well.

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