Speedo Land

I just returned from a week on the beach in northern Italy. We were all originally supposed to stay for two weeks. But the weather report for the second week called for bad weather (cool, overcast, and rainy). Since Bibione is an outdoor place, we thought it best to cut the trip short and head home. The main thing to do in Bibione is to go to the beach. The beach isn't much fun in the rain.

After looking at all of the people on the beach in Bibione, I think it should be renamed, "Speedo Land." It seemed like just about every man on the beach was wearing a Speedo swimsuit. Only a very small percentage of men should be wearing Speedos: Olympic divers, Olympic swimmers, and men with the classic marathoner's build. Unfortunately, 99% of the Speedo wearers on the beach in Bibione would never pass for an Olympic diver. They were more like the Italian guys who sat a few rows ahead of us on the beach with big bellies and 1970s disco era type gold chains, or else they were part of the over-65 set. There was even one guy who tucked the back of his Speedo into his butt crack to make it like a thong. Looking at that guy's butt was harder on the eyes than watching an Aly Raisman floor exercise routine. That old saying, "The bigger the belly, the smaller the Speedo" is true.  After having a baby, I realized that my bikini wearing days were over despite all of my running and sit-ups. Maybe the guys in Speedos just don't care because they realize that once their holiday is over, they'll never see the other people on the beach again.

The water on the beach was very warm and shallow a long way out. We could walk out about 200 meters from the shore and still be able to stand. Even though the Adriatic was warm, it was still very refreshing after being out in the hot sun. The only down side was that we had to watch out for jellyfish.

Italian TV has a lot of channels. But it seemed like at least 50% of them were devoted to football (soccer). When one of the football channels wasn't broadcasting a replay of  the previous weekend's matches from Italy, Spain, England, or France, it was doing a feature on a football team or interviewing players or a trainer. It was TV heaven for my son, who's a big football fan. He didn't care that everything was in Italian. In fact, he decided that he could learn some Italian by watching football matches.

Bibione has grown since the last time I was there, which was about 10 years ago. The path along the beach used to end just at the outskirts of town. I used to be able to run from my apartment, to one end of the path, to the other end of the path, and back to the apartment in about 30 minutes. On this trip I ran out  one way 30 minutes and still hadn't reached the trail's end. There are also two parallel trails: one for pedestrians and the other for cyclists.

Early morning is when all of the runners come out. The last time I was in Bibione, I felt like I was the only runner out on the beach in the early morning. Maybe it had something to do with going later in September on my previous trips.  But on this trip it seemed like between the hours of 7 and 8 a.m. runners and walkers owned the pedestrian path on the beach. My fellow runners and I were out early to beat the heat. There were male and female runners of all ages on the pedestrian path. The Germans were the ones with the pasty white skin and the Italians had more olive-colored skin. But both the Germans and Italians wore dark socks. They must have thought I was an oddity in my off-white Thor-Los. I saw one man wearing a City Run shirt, but it was from the one in Nuernberg. There was also an older woman running in a bikini.

The ice cream in Bibione was to die for. Italians make the world's best ice cream. Every flavor I had was excellent and I couldn't pick a favorite. There was an ice cream shop about 50 meters from our apartment and we went there every night either before or after dinner. That particular shop had its standard flavors, but each day there were some new and different flavors. I wish I could have stayed longer just to be able to sample all of the various ice cream flavors. I have always believed that ice cream should be its own food group. But real Italian ice cream should be a part of everyone's daily diet.

It's a good thing I brought my running gear with me and went running every other day for between 40 and 60 minutes. Otherwise I would have had to buy a Speedo.

Euro '12: Final Thoughts

Here are more thoughts about the European Football (soccer) Championships, or Euro '12, which ended Sunday night with Spain beating Italy 4:0 in the final match. Spain made history by becoming the first team to win 3 major tournaments in a row: Euro '08, World Cup 2010, and Euro '12. Italy was classy in defeat and paid Spain many compliments. In both the World Cup and in Euro '12 Spain looked very flat. In fact, Spain came close to being eliminated by Croatia in the group stages. But La Furia Roja (the Red Fury) has a way of coming up with great performances in the finals. Spain's decisive victory on Sunday silenced the critics who complained about La Furia Roja being boring. I can easily see Spain defending its World Cup title in Brazil in 2014.

Trainer of the Tournament: Cesare Prandelli of Italy. He took over coaching the Italian team in 2010 after its disastrous performance at the World Cup. In 2010 the Italians didn't even make it out of the group stages after winning the title in 2006. The players on the 2012 Italian squad seemed to be a bunch of aging veterans, misfits, and others who were considered hard to handle. There were very low expectations  for Italy at Euro '12 because the team had poor performances in qualifying and in pre-tournament friendly matches. Yet Prandelli did a great job of guiding the Azzuri all the way to the final. Italy's highlight of the tournament was its win over heavily-favored Germany in the semi-finals. Even though Spain won the tournament, Italy won the most hearts and fans.

Typecasting: If I was a casting director, Euro '12 would be a gold mine for finding people to fill specific roles.
Count Dracula: With his slicked-back hair, Italian coach Cesare Prandelli would be a good choice to play Dracula or a grown-up Eddie Munster.
The Incredible Hulk: Mario Balotelli of Italy. He is incredibly muscular and looks very deadpan, or even angry. His celebration after his second goal against Germany in the semi-finals was to take off his shirt and show off his muscles without cracking a smile.
German Soldier or Hitler Youth Leader in a World War II movie: German goalie Manuel Neuer. He has short blond hair, blue eyes, and a sturdy build. If this was the 1930s, Neuer would be held up as an ideal example of how a German should look. My son has a poster in his room in which Neuer is holding a football with his right arm extended in what looks like an old Nazi salute.
1920s American football player: The Czech Republic's goalie Petr Cech. He wears a leather helmet when he plays to protect his head because he suffered a severe concussion. That helmet looks like something an old-time American football player would wear.
My Favorite Martian: Franck Ribery of France. He has a long, thin head and pointy chin. I can easily imagine him with a set of antennae on top of his head.
A Young Beatle: If I was making a documentary about the Beatles, I would cast David Silva of Spain because he has a mid-1960s Beatles haircut. Silva would probably play the role of Ringo because he's short.
Hannibal Lecter: Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands. With his shaved head he has a resemblance to Anthony Hopkins. OK, I confess that Sneijder looks evil because his team, Inter Milan, beat Bayern Munich in the 2010 Champion's League final.  Even though Sneijder didn't score any goals, he was instrumental in Inter's victory. That automatically makes him mean.
Nemo: Mesut Oezil of Germany because of his eyes. Oezil's eyes look like fish eyes because of how they pop out.  His Real Madrid teammates even call him Nemo.
A Southern Redneck: Petr Jiracek of the Czech Republic. He is the only player with a mullet.
Dr. David Hayward: German trainer Joachim Loew. The evil Dr. Hayward is a character on the US soap opera "All My Children" played by Vincent Irizarry. Loew and Irizarry could pass as identical twins. They are even the same age!  A couple of years ago I was at the gym with my son. "All My Children" was on one of the TVs. Dr. Hayward was in that particular scene when I looked at the TV. I turned to my son and said, "Jogi Loew is on TV." He looked at the TV with "All My Children" and did a double take while wondering why the German national trainer was on an American soap opera. He was also amazed at the resemblance between Loew and Irizarry. If "All My Children" ever comes back, and Irizarry has other committments, Loew can step into Dr. Hayward's role.
Opera Singer: Gianluigi Buffon, the Italian goalie. He really belts out the Italian national anthem. While his  projection is excellent, he needs to work on his singing voice.

Melting Pot: Germany's team has a lot of starting players who are from different countries. The players themselves are German citizens; they were either born in Germany or came to Germany as young children. Mesut Oezil is Turkish, Sami Khedira is Tunisian, Mario Gomez is half Spanish, Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose are Polish, and Jerome Boateng is from Ghana.

Battle of the Midgets: Two of the smallest players at Euro '12 were Germany's Philip Lahm and Mathieu Valbuena of France. Lahm is listed at 1.70 meters (about 5'7") and Valbuena between 1.63 and 1.67 meters (5'4" to 5'6"). Both players faced each other during the 2012 Champion's League playoffs, but not at Euro '12. When my family watched the Marseilles vs Bayern Munich series earlier this year (Valbuena plays for Marseilles, Lahm for Bayern), my son started calling Valbuena, "The Mighty Midget." Unfortunately, Valbuena didn't get any playing time at Euro '12, even though he was on the French squad. Maybe France would have scored more goals with the Mighty Midget in the lineup. The Greek team also looked to be quite small, but then again I saw the Greek players next to the very tall German defenders, so it was hard to make a real comparison.

Neighbors: Two of the German national players come from towns which are very close to Garmisch. Bastian Schweinsteiger is from Oberau, which is 8 km away. Thomas Mueller comes from Weilheim, which is 35 km away. Both men play for Bayern Munich.

How I Knew Spain Would Beat Italy: In my last post I described how I used the songs on my iPod to predict how Italy would do in its matches, at least for the quarter and semi-finals. On Sunday I went for a two-hour run. There were 50 songs on the playlist that I was using, but only one was by Eros Ramazzotti. I added one from Antonello Venditti and decided that if Eros came up first, then Spain would win (he has recorded most of his songs in Spanish as well as his native Italian). In retrospect, I should have used "Spanish Bombs" by the Clash, which actually has a few words of Spanish. But that's another story. Anyway, neither Antonello's nor Eros' song came up. Then it was Plan B. I decided that all of the songs by British singers or bands would represent Spain because the English were the Redcoats in the American Revolutionary War. Spain is La Furia Roja or the Red Fury. Songs by American bands or singers would represent Italy, since US Revolutionary War soldiers are depicted wearing blue. Italy's team is the Azzuri or the Blues. During my run I listened to songs by: Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton, the Police, the Rolling Stones, Credendce Clearwater Revival, Bruce Springsteen, the Hollies, the Who, Frank Zappa and many others. But when I finished my run and tallied the songs, the British tunes outnumbered the American ones. It was at that moment I knew that Spain would win. If the Italian team needs someone to predict the outcomes of their matches, I'm available. But I won't be holding my breath waiting for a phone call from Italy.

Bella Italia

On Monday I got back from an 8-day trip to Lake Garda in Italy. The weather was sunny and warm, though the mornings were refreshingly cool. Our apartment was on the small side, but had everything that we needed. We were outside the town of Sirmione, on the very southern part of the lake. Most of our days were spent hanging out by the pool or lake, which was about 300 meters from our apartment. The pool at our apartment complex wasn't heated and was rather chilly. Brrrr! But the lake water was warmer and very pleasant. Lake Garda was surprisingly shallow, at least our little part of it was. I could walk out for over 100 meters before the water was over my head. There was also a small playground across from the apartment complex, where we played some basketball or football (soccer). Overall it was a very relaxing vacation. We went out for pizza once; but the pizza wasn't as good as that at our local pizzeria in Garmisch (which is owned by Italians). On the other nights we cooked our meals in the apartment. The ice cream was fantastic! Italians make the world's best ice cream. We decided to stay for another three days, but as we were making a reservation, we saw a weather report which showed lots of rain over the next four days. We decided that if it was going to rain, we may as well be at home. 

The area where we stayed is famous for its amusement parks. There are three big ones in the area: Gardaland, Movieland Studios, and Canevaword (also known as Movieland Water Park). Movieland and Canevaworld are owned by the same company and you can get a special 2-day ticket that's almost a "two days for the price of one" deal.  Here's how I rated them:

1. Canevaworld: No waiting in lines for the different rides, which was a definite plus. The Crazy River inner tube ride was the most fun ride. It wasn't very crowded the day we went there because the day had started off fairly cool. 

2. Gardaland: Had the best roller coasters and rides in general, but long waiting times for the various good rides. I was too scared to try Blue Thunder, which was a suspension coaster. Magic Mountain was a fun coaster with two loops and two corkscrews. 

3. Movieland Studios: The smallest of the three parks. Most of the attractions got you wet. There were also long waits to do some of the rides. Their main roller coaster was fun, but over almost as soon as it started. 

One thing that I really like about European amusement parks is that you're allowed to bring your own food. In US amusement parks it's streng verboten (strictly forbidden) to bring your own food into the parks. At all three parks were able to pack nice picnic lunches and buy little treats. The food in European amusement parks is also not a big ripoff like in the States. The prices were the same or slightly higher than they would have been for the same food at a restaurant in town. The whole idea of going to an amusement park in Europe is to have a good time without going broke. 

There were a few things that I found a bit different. One was that when I was looking online for places to stay, I noticed that hotels in the area cost a lot more than apartments. You can really save money by staying in an apartment and cooking most of your meals. I've found over the years that Italian hotels aren't that nice. An Italian three-star apartment is much nicer than a three-star hotel.  Sheets and towels also aren't included with an Italian apartment like they are in Germany or Austria. You either have to bring your own or pay for each set of sheets and towels. We brought our own. Even though it's now the 21st century, most of the toilets at the amusement parks were holes in the ground surrounded by a little porcelain. You'd think that with the relatively high ticket prices of these parks (but still much lower than an equivalent amusement park in the States), they could afford to get out of the Dark Ages and upgrade the commodes. 

I got in two short (about 5 km) runs during my trip. There is a small path along the lake shore. Even though it was short, it had all sorts of terrain: grass, dirt, pebbles, wooden bridges, cement, cobblestones, and a little bit of asphalt. I would have run more, but I slept in too late most mornings. If I wasn't out the door by 9, it would have been too warm to run. But I wasn't a total slug because I walked around the amusement parks, played ball, and did a little swimming. I had to do something to burn off all the ice cream! 

I have the rest of the week off. Then it's back to work on Tuesday, which is also when the kids go back to school in Bavaria.