Sorry MSU, your couch burning has been One Up-ed...

Howdy ya’ll. Commin in with your weekly fix of ignorant American ranting about ‘stupid’ Europeans. This past week was a little more eventful than the previous one, with the weekend standing out with things actually done instead of those not accomplished.
This Saturday, I went to Perusia for the yearly chocolate festival. Deemed THE chocolate festival throughout all of Italy, I decided, as one who would marry chocolate if it were legal, that I should probably check this thing out. However, it wasn’t as I had expected when I arrived. Personally, I had envisioned something along the lines of Willie Wonka taking over Perusia for a week and flooding the streets with chocolate, fountiants made of chocolate spewing more chocolate everywhere, perhaps a waterfall somewhere and maybe even an Umpa Loompa in the mix. To my dismay, none of these things became a reality as I was left to wander the small, over-crowded streets from over-priced tent to another, spending way too much money on chocolate that I don’t particularly “need” but figured that I should probably get anyway. Despite my chocolate hopes and dreams lasting as long as a buckeye’s hopes ever being cool, it was still a pretty good time and I’m glad I went. Got to experience popcorn smothered in chocolate syrup and the most delicious hot chocolate ever conceived by beast, man, or God…more of a melted chocolate in a cup than your conventional swiss mix; truly the most delectable beverage that I will most likely experience here, followed closely by Wieksee Witte and Guinness.
So the chocolate festival was cool and I would show you pictures of it…but on the way back, while switching busses, it somehow managed to be pilfered from my being, hence, no pictures yet (I’ll try and take some other peoples pictures form their cameras and post them). So, this now means that all that awesome birthday money you guys supplied me with will now be going toward a brand new, over-priced, shiny digital camera. Hopefully I can try to get a deal somewhere, though it appears that all electronic devices in Italy are much more expensive than in the states, sometimes being more euros than dollars. So that sucks, but, as usual, we’ll play through.
To help to ease the “man, you’re a dumb-ass” syndrome I felt all Saturday night afterwards I decided to go to an event at which I could have possibly been killed on Sunday…the Roma v. Lazio soccer (which will here-on-out be referred to as ‘futboll’ with a U instead of two O’s so as not to be confused with American Football.). The Roma/Lazio rivalry can be compared to that of a Michigan/Ohio State rivalry with a twist of Michigan/Michigan State rivalry thrown in since Lazio is the region in which Rome resides…kind of like the state system back in the U.S. So, it’s basically like putting two caged bulls into a stadium on opposite sides and saying “ok, now play nicely.”
Riot police padded us down as we entered the stadium, making sure we didn’t have any sharp objects with which to kill our opponents fans (literally) and to make sure our names on the IDs handed matched those, along w/the birthdates, printed on our tickets…a new policy implemented two months ago to help prevent ticket scalping. After being thoroughly groped, we made our way to our seats…in the Lazio section, who are deemed the most violent and aggressive fans in all of Italy. I made sure to not wear anything with the Roma colors. After entering the stadium, I noticed about 40-60 riot geared police manning just our section, making their shields and night sticks clearly visible, along with the +5 German Sheppard attack dogs that escorted the fine police officers.
I fortunately didn’t have the pleasure of a chance encounter with these dogs or their wooden beating sticks, however, I was witness to a little stick usage on a fight that broke out in a section next to ours near the field…it was pretty crazy how responsive and aggressive the police were…they take zero shit from anyone. The other comforting factor of the stadium was how each individual seating area is sectioned off on the terrace level outside of the seating with huge steal walls, so that fans can’t go attack other fans.
Despite all these “safety precautions,” the game was amazing, ending sadly in a 1-1 tie. Goal scoring was possibly the most interesting thing that happened concerning the fans. It was as if each fan in the section of the scoring team had won the world lottery of 2 billion dollars or something similar. They went absolutely bizzerk, jumping up and down, hugging, singing, and I think I even saw a few of them shed some tears of joy. Absolute madness ensued for about 3 minutes until the team on the field, who did basically the same as the fans, collected itself and decided it was time to continue the game. I’ve never seen any fans so excited about basically anything as they were about a goal. Something that everyone should experience along with the amazing art…a European futboll game.
Those are the two main events of the past week and, fortunately for your reading pleasure, my roommate Chalan and I just booked a trip to Scotland for this upcoming weekend, so there will be much to be told. We fly into Glasgow Thursday night, then Friday night we’re going to go to some other town for the night (since we have no place to stay in Glasgow), then back to Glasgow Saturday night and home Sunday afternoon. Our main goal is to find some immortal highlander and behead him, hence taking his immortality and being left to battle the few other immortals and adversaries until the end of time…just like the books, movies, and syndicated TV series based on the books and movies. However, if that doesn’t work out, I think going to see Nessey at Loch Ness would be in order along with seeing some super old castles and various other cool, Scottish country-side type deals. If anyone knows anything about Scotland and or places we should see/visit, please lemme know.
As for now, I have to go watch an Italian movie in place of one of our classes this week. It’s about a radio host who had a non-biased political radio program during the 70’s in Italy while there were large communist and democratic movements being held. I believe the host was ultimately killed by the communist party (The Reds) for entertaining the democrats. So, Frank, remember not to befriend any of these communists ‘cause apparently the moral of the story is that they’ll kill any radio hosts who they don’t like. With that, I’m out to be bored by a movie I don’t understand about a history I know nothing about by a ‘famed’ Italian director, which probably makes it some indie thing, making it most likely somewhat bizarre in its story line and style of shooting and production.
Ciao,
Jon boy