Torino: a nice city. I'd never been here before and had heard it was just a big industrial city (home of Fiat and birth place of Nutella -- so it can't be all bad), but the center is quite nice. Not as big or showy as Milan or Rome, but quite pretty and manageable. The Winter Olympics were a good excuse to visit.
The morning after we got in, my brother and I took a walk down to Piazza San Carlo (being called "Piazza NBC," because that's where NBC was broadcasting the Today Show -- they were not doing a show when we walked by). But just across from the Statue of Vittorio Emanuele II (The Egoist), a huge screen showed live broadcasts (in Italian) of all the events. We were lucky enough to be walking past when the Italian team was competing in the Speed Skating Pursuit (a strange and obscure event); the Italian crowd was cheering and going nuts and when the Italians won there was a mini-celebration in the Piazza. Very cool.
Later that night, after a dinner of pizza and bruscetta, we headed over to Torino Esposizioni to see the US play Kazakhstan in hockey. Interesting crowd. Lots of Americans (of course), too many American flags, a surprising number of fans dressed in the awful colors of Kazakhstan (baby blue and yellow), lots of Italians with their faces painted in the Italian flag (not really sure why), three blonde Latvian women, looking like triplets, dressed in Latvian shirts and holding "USA" signs (not sure what that was about).
Have the fun of the hockey game was talking to some of the folks sitting around us. To my right was a family from Minnesota, two kids (12ish), parents and a brother-in-law from Florida (the kids knew all the US players by name and their stats). In front of us a father and son (50ish and 30ish) from Worcester, Mass. The son from Worcester kept on chucking whenever the announcer said "Kazakhstan" cause he couldn't get Borat out of his head ("I like to smell people!"). He said he always just assumed that Kazakhstan was a fake country that Ali G made up. He also had seen The Daily Show commentary on the Opening Ceremonies; his only source of news.
During the game, the annoying chants of "USA! USA!" were heard periodically, made me cringe every time, although I guess this is the appropriate venue. Oddly enough, the 20-something Italians a few rows behind us joined in the chanting (even started some USA chants on their own). I couldn't tell if they were mocking the American fans or just enjoying the scene. They were cheering equally for the Kazakhstanis. And I think I figured out something from those Italians behind us. Those odd 70s disco songs that played during the opening ceremonies: Well they were playing during the hockey game too, same weird techno versions of old disco hits -- and the Italians sang along with every one -- I think they only knew these new weird versions of the songs and not the originals -- so those songs must be an Italian thing.
This next morning we headed over to the main Olympic Souvenir shop in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, to perhaps watch some of the live Today show broadcast (my brother promised one of his biker friends (who has a pony tail, tattoos, the whole bit (and who now has a job delivering corpses around the state of California)) that he would wave. We missed the broadcast. At the Olympic Souvenir shop, I;d really wanted to buy a scarf with the Swiss flag on it. I thought it would be a good totem to wear as I travel around the world. Whenever I am feeling that anti-American sentiments are getting a little too aggressive, I could slip that scarf around my neck -- Who would ever bother a Swiss?? They didn't have any. But I did find that the scarf I was wearing looks remarkably like the Latvian flag (who would've guessed?), so I might be ok anyway.
That afternoon we drove out of the city to see the Skeleton: our whole reason for being at the Olympics in the first place: we know the coach -- a childhood friend, Go Orv! The Skeleton took place at night, so it was a bit chilly, and the bleachers where our seats were located were at the top of the hill -- about a mile long icy walk along the track.
Skeleton is pretty much an insane sport. One lies face down on a little taboggan and shoots head-first down an icy track at 80 miles per hour, with one's nose about 6 inches off the ice (Not to be confused with "luge," that sport for pussies who go down the track feet first). All in all, not a sport to watch live (or really at all come to think of it). In our seats in the bleachers, huddled and cold, we could see the Skeletoneers trot along at the start and throw themselves onto the sled ... and then they are gone from sight. That's all we could see. Later we left our seats and tried watching at different spots along the course, in a futile attempt to see something, anything, of the action. But all you could see was a blur as the sled sped by -- and most spots along the course did not even offer that, just a bank of ice where you could hear the sled pass. The US team sucked anyway and we left early.
The next day, in the morning we drove out to see the Super G (skiing). Again, not a particularly good spectator sport. All you can really see is the finish, and watch the rest on the big screens. But in our case, it was a moot point anyway. The Super G got snowed out. Of course the announcement did not come until after a delay of 4 hours, with us sitting under an ever increasing snow drift. We didn't stay to see if it would ever begin again, as we wanted to get back to the city to see the hockey game.
The last event we saw was USA v. Slovokia in hockey. It was an excellent game and quite the scene in the stands. More Slovaks (Slovakians? Slovakanistas?) than Americans, and a boisterous bunch are they. But everyone was good natured. In the lobby between periods, I saw an American woman come up to 6 big Slovaks, dressed in team hockey jersies, strange hats, painted faced, the whole bit ... she asked if she could get a picture with them, with lots of hand signals. They said sure and promptly picked her up and held her lying across their arms. It was cute and they were perfect gentlemen.
I think if I ever see another Olympics, I will stick with watching hockey.
