If I had to guess, I’d say that some of your friends wanted to be cool during sophomore year of college and went on a road trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Am I right? Another handful of them probably studied in Spain for a semester and told you that Cadiz is the only place in the world to celebrate Carnival.
You, however, were original enough to google "Carnival, Croatia" and ended up in Rijeka.
First off, if you can even point out Croatia on a map, you’re ahead of the curve. According to my newly acquired friends in Rijeka, most Americans don't know and don't care about their people. If you were cool enough to do that Google search, though, you are proving them wrong already!
Rijeka has one of the biggest Carnival events in the entire world. The entire city bases its weekend schedule around it. For those of you that enjoy a proper night out, you'll be happy to find that bars stay open until 6am, and that somehow, someway, you'll inexplicably end up at a discotheque set up on one of the many ships in the harbor.
Don't worry about oversleeping after your infamous night out in Rijeka! The bands and floats for the huge parade go down the main street—and will definitely wake you up—at 11am sharp in preparation for the parade at noon. After waking up and washing last night's face paint (and regret) away, you'll be ready for the eight-hour parade. This parade will include every type of CRAZY that you can think of: grown men in diapers drinking whiskey out of water bottles, choreography in the style of LMFAO, and dancing penguins, to name a few. Then you'll see surprise performances from both Barack Obama and Mr. Beans. Finally, you'll see the 98th float around 8pm, as 250 Croatian men in huge monster masks parade around before they are traditionally executed, representing all the "bad spirits" of the previous year.
And then, of course, the afterparty: a huge white tent with cheap amusement park rides surrounding it and a live band playing the greatest music you've ever heard . . . even though you still don't speak a word of Croatian.
This, my friends, is what happens when you choose Rijeka.