Last Weekend of February

Hello all,

Sorry that it's been so long since I blogged, I know how annoying it must have been for you guys. I promise to try and keep up with stuff. I forget what my last blog was about but I think I'll pick up with this weekend.

Venice

So Friday night, I went to Venice for Carnivale which is their version of Mardi Gras and they sure went all out for it, step your game up New Orleans. So after an amazing dinner in Trastevere at Dar Poeta (best pizza in Rome, no lie, google them) with Juan, we walked down to the Coliseum to catch the metro to the train station. The train left around 10:30 pm and we got to Venice at 5:30am. As you can see, the sun was nowhere to be seen.

Let's see if I can finish this before my pasta starts boiling over. So I got there real early, wandered around the confusing streets that have no pattern or grid-like structure to them. You could literally walk into the river if you weren't pay attention. Thankfully there were signs everywhere that pointed towards Piazza San Marco (the main place in Venice) however some of the were official city signs, and others were drawn on a piece of paper and taped to a wall (frequently pointing in conflicting directions -damn teenagers). Finally, after a long time we found it and were able to hang out there and watch the sun rise up over the Mediterranean. Gondolas everywhere.

Then we stopped at a bar for hot chocolate because it was freezing out and then took the water bus over to one of the islands where we went to another bar for pastries and espressos to wake us up. Now that we had our second breakfast we were ready to explore. We went back to the main island and checked out the fish market that we had actually walked by earlier that morning but it was now full of life with people and seafood everywhere! Check out my facebook album for more pictures. Some of the stuff was still alive! After that we went over to the Murano island which is where glass blowing is famous. We watched a couple neat demonstrations and got lunch promptly at Noon at a nice ristorante along a canal. We then got our masks which officially completed everything we want to do. However, it was only 1-ish at that point, although we had already been there for 7 hours.

DO IT

View from our wine drinking spot

Took the water bus back to the main island and walked around a bit until we sat down along some steps along a canal to enjoy a couple bottles of wine as we waited for the parade to come by.

The next 8 hours whizzed by. We followed the parade (along with a million other people) back to St Marks Square where they had entertainment going on in the main stage, not that you could move anywhere because of how packed it was. Hung out there for a bit, hopped around from bar to bar until dinner at a nice place away from the square. After that, went back to the main square and they had a really good live band going on and the square was still packed with people which was a lot of fun and then departed for the train station a couple islands away for the 11:30 train which didn't get back to Rome until 7am Sunday morning.

Parade heading towards St Mark's Square

After sleeping on and off on the train, and after stumbling through the early morning back home, I got 2 and half hours of sleep until I had to wake up again at a quarter of 11 to get ready for the AS Roma v Parma soccer game. I met some friends and we went over to the Olympic Stadium in the northern part of Rome where I got my AS Roma scarf and hat so I wouldn't get beat up (already got complimented on my hat last night by a bartender).

AS Roma v Parma

Going to this game was one of the more fun things I've done here too so far. Now I know I can't call myself a Roma fan yet or even act like it because that would go against everything I stand for in sports. I'll take this moment to talk about how I hate fair weather fans who just fans of whatever is most convenient at the time (no one likes you, bandwagon yankees and patriots fans) so I'll admit that I was just there as a sports fan but it was a pretty amazing experience for anyone who is a fan of sports like me. Hopefully the more I start to follow them I'll be able to use the term "we" about them without angering all the true Roma fans. It was fun watching their different cheering tactics and fan behavior and compare it to what fans do back in America at sports game. There was no "OH" in the national anthem but they all hold up their scarves and banners as they sing it. We (all of us there are Terps) did our best at changing UMD chants to Roma ones but they're still a work in progress. At first when we saw everyone bringing in newspapers we got our hopes up but they were just for putting on the wet seats. I'd write more about the game but I've typed a lot already and I don't want people to lose interest because I write too much. To sum it up, it was a tie game after Roma had a 2-0 lead at the half [no Fergie halftime entertainment :( ].





To cap off the rest of my weekend into this week, I've gone out and celebrated two 21st birthdays for friends here (Happy Birthday Adam and John) which reminded me that I guess I need to pick a place to go Friday night for mine. Not sure if I'll stay low key or go out, nothing to celebrate about turning 20 anyways, Congratulations Michael you can still die for your country but can't legally drink. Well, not that any of that matters here though.

I have a tour planned for Friday afternoon of St. Peter's tomb in the necropolis underneath St Peter's Basilica. Besides him being buried there, there's also a painting I learned about in my "bodies and burials" class this week that is there that is the first ever documented painting of Jesus Christ. Funny thing is, the painter has him represented as the Greek god of the sun, Apollo. Interesting, I'll let you all take from that what you want. Oh and I'm doing a day trip to Perugia Saturday. TripAdvisor says it's a good place so you know it is then. Apparently they're known for their chocolate too. Sounds good to me.