Blues, French Fries, and Canals

Friday night the whole family went to a concert. At first I thought that it was going to be a classical music concert like the one we had gone to a week ago, but this was not the case. We approached the Teatro Astra in Vicenza and I could hear the loud heavy metal from outside the venue. The sign outside the door read, “Concerto per i bambini di Tibet”, or “Concert for the children of Tibet”, a fundraiser for the service organization of Vicentine doctors that help out an orphanage in Tibet, which my host mother is part of. A few minutes later, the event officially started with a teenage band called Plastic Smile. Their music was mediocre at best, and also not my preference of genre. Their main song, called “Hey, Daddy” was a cacophonous mix of the terrible sounds coming from a bad drummer, two long-haired guitarists, and a lead singer with a thick Italian accent singing in English. They also used way too much stage smoke than their musical skills entitled them to. This made me feel even sorrier for the Tibetan children whose orphanage had been destroyed in the recent earthquake. It was then followed up by a much better group of older men playing ‘70s “rock progressivo”, also in English. After that was a second teenage band, which I was hoping would be better than the first. Luckily, it was, as they played a lot of Queen covers and definitely did deserve their amount of stage smoke. To end the night, a fourth band came on stage, and was definitely not what I expected - a Louisiana-style blues band who played classic blues songs but in Italian. For example, instead of playing “Sweet Home Chicago” they played “Dolce Casa Asiago”.

The Italian blues band.

Yesterday, had school, but that night, I went out with a bunch of friends for a pizza to celebrate the birthdays of two of them. I ordered a “margherita”, or the classic cheese with basil and it was very good. But to my surprise, many people there ordered a different kind, called “patatina”, which is a regular pizza crust with tomato sauce, but French fries on top. It was not exactly how I expected the Italians to eat their pizza. While eating, I had a nice conversation with my friends in which they explained to me in great detail the Italian government.

My friends were amazed that we did not eat this in America.

After dinner, we walked around Vicenza for a few hours, which was very pleasant. Vicenza is a great town by day, but by night it is amazing, especially when with some friends. At almost midnight, we all said our goodbyes and headed home.

This morning, I woke up at about nine, which was nice considering that I had been waking up before six for six days straight. I went downstairs, where Cristina asked me what I wanted to do today, to which I replied the easy, “I don’t know, whatever you are doing.” She then looked outside and told me to go search the weather forecast for Venice for today. I went and found that, unlike what she thought, it was going to be a beautiful day. She then told Oscar, my host father, that we were going to Venice for the day. I was extremely excited and ran upstairs for my camera. We then went to pick up Osvaldo at his soccer game in a nearby town, and drove the remaining part of highway to Venice. When we were in the car, I was talking with my host siblings and not looking outside, but then I took a glance and saw something totally unexpected – a ferry. I then looked further and saw Venice further off. We were on the highway over the Venetian lagoon. We then parked and walked around Venice for a good four or five hours. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then below is a 100,000 word essay on today. I would rather let you see what I saw today as opposed to just tell you about it.

Piazza San Marco, flooded due to a high water level.

Me in front of one of Venice's hundreds of canals. Of course, the gondola in the back.

I could not help but take the classic postcard picture. Here you can see what a beautiful day it was.

And another postcard picture. This was later in the day when the sun was beautifully reflected on the canals.

From left to right: Giuditta, me, Osvaldo, Maria, and Oscar. Cristina is taking this picture on us at Piazza San Marco.

A traffic jam, Venetian style.

A young girl having some fun in flooded Piazza San Marco.

One of Venice's many shops selling masks for Carnival, which I hope to be able to attend this spring.

Always have to have your vegetables - these funghi where outside of a Venetian restaurant.

The stilted walkways in Piazza San Marco.