(no subject)
Going back to Florence today.
But lots to say about Venice. We watched the world cup finals in a few places: mostly standing from the outskirts of a bar. They, along with about 6 other bars in the square, had a TV facing the outside so that people could watch. Spent the first 90 minutes there, then in overtime, we retired to our hotel and watched from the common room. The 2 experiences could not have been more different! From the bar, of course, the crowd was full of crazy football watchers, with horns and flags and face painting. At the hotel was a handful of middle aged tourists from different places around the world who asked me questions like, “how many quarters will there be?” Had to laugh.
After Italy won, we went outside to enjoy the revelry. It was really muted considering 2 things:
1) there are no cars and no scooters, and so no horns to honk (except the odd air horn and boat horn)
2) the tourists outnumber the locals by about 5:1, so there were actually relatively few ppl in the city excited about the win. Mostly it was Italian tourists from other cities.
Across the water on another island, where more locals lived, things looked pretty crazy. But we went out anyways and walked to one of the more famous bridges. There lots of ppl were gathering, and guys started stripping down and jumping the 8-10m off the bridge into the canal (yes, the polluted, disease ridden canal). 3 guys in particular started the jumping. They were really drunk and ran around and jumped off the bridge again about 6 or 7 times. It was good times all around.
But lots to say about Venice. We watched the world cup finals in a few places: mostly standing from the outskirts of a bar. They, along with about 6 other bars in the square, had a TV facing the outside so that people could watch. Spent the first 90 minutes there, then in overtime, we retired to our hotel and watched from the common room. The 2 experiences could not have been more different! From the bar, of course, the crowd was full of crazy football watchers, with horns and flags and face painting. At the hotel was a handful of middle aged tourists from different places around the world who asked me questions like, “how many quarters will there be?” Had to laugh.
After Italy won, we went outside to enjoy the revelry. It was really muted considering 2 things:
1) there are no cars and no scooters, and so no horns to honk (except the odd air horn and boat horn)
2) the tourists outnumber the locals by about 5:1, so there were actually relatively few ppl in the city excited about the win. Mostly it was Italian tourists from other cities.
Across the water on another island, where more locals lived, things looked pretty crazy. But we went out anyways and walked to one of the more famous bridges. There lots of ppl were gathering, and guys started stripping down and jumping the 8-10m off the bridge into the canal (yes, the polluted, disease ridden canal). 3 guys in particular started the jumping. They were really drunk and ran around and jumped off the bridge again about 6 or 7 times. It was good times all around.