A Broad Abroad

A reprieve from the weather Gods!! After weeks of thundershowers and more predicted for yesterday, we were mighty worried about the concert being rained out in Verona. But no! There was only one small 10 minute sprinkle, otherwise the day was fine and the evening even better. Yeah!

So this is how it went. We met up, Grace and two friends and all the moms, at a local supermarket and started out at 11 a.m.. The trip to Verona is 3 hours. On the way we listen to; Capital Steps (a favorite of my Dutch friend from her years living in New York. Who wudda thunk?), Eurovision winners (a yearly European singing contest that just took place), a bunch of Dutch jazz (Dutch gal's uncle is a well know musician). Guess who drove? Dutch gal. It started out sunny and we had food for an army. One never knows when you might need a marshmallow. I was not the marshmallow culprit. The three girls were in the very back of the enormous red Ford Explorer with diplomatic plates, (we didn't stick out at all), singing One Direction songs at the top of their lungs. After all the rain we've had, the fields on either side of the highway were very green and filled with wild red poppies. The Maritime Alps were bathed in sun on our right starting out and we arrived with the Dolomites dark in clouds on our left. It was quite scenic. When we were about 3/4 of the way there, we stopped at a Autogrill to use the bathrooms and grab something to eat cause marshmallows wasn't cutting it for some of us. We felt a funny wobble pulling into the parking lot and low and behold, when we got out we saw we had a flat tire. Though perfectly capable of changing it ourselves, (at least my friends are - me not so much), we wandered around and found two Slovakian truckers to change it for us. They were very friendly, toothless and strong. One spoke Italian quite well. The other just smiled and nodded a lot. We tried to buy them a beer or coffee after to thank them but they just waved us off and went back to the big wheeler. Previously unknown fact; truckers in Europe are not permitted drive on weekends. So they just crash in their trucks where ever they happen to be and consume huge quantities of beer and hookers.

We got to Verona about 2:30, dropped the girls off where the police had blocked off the center for the concert, and went in search of a parking space. Remarkably, we avoided the designated concert parking miles away, and found a place in a underground lot five minutes from the center. Then we walked up into bright sunlight and complete and utter chaos. For those of us over 20, One Direction, (or 1D as I have been informed they are referred to), is a group of cute, mildly talented boys with too many tattoos and all in need of a good haircut. Well evidently we are WRONG! Or so 30,000 screaming teenaged girls, ( and a disturbing number of dads), seem to think. There were crowds like New Year's Eve in Times Square. Verona is a small, old city with narrow cobbled streets. The concert was held in the Arena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verona_Arena) that thankfully is in a huge piazza. The crowds filled the piazza and spilled into all the surrounding streets. We stopped behind the Arena where an especially active, screaming group was amassed to see what was going on. We climbed up on the railing of a building beside some old guy (our age) with binoculars and a couple bug-eyed daughters who explained that on the other side of the wall across from us the band was waiting in a white tent. We think we saw the back of one of the boy's head in a baseball cap because the screaming became particularly shrill when he appeared. I thought it would be funny to scream and wave like the 12 year old's all around us but my friends didn't find it amusing and almost lost me in the crowd with the speed in which they left. It took us an hour to find the girls, ensure that they had everything they needed and make plans for meeting after the concert. Then they were swept away with the mass of hysterical teens towards the entryways and we squeezed our way against the flow and headed for a quiet bar and a glass of wine. We found lots! Verona is gorgeous. It has a huge amount of tourism from Switzerland and Austria and caters to the high end visitors. It is impeccably renovated with store after store of outrageously expensive Italian goods and tons of restaurants and bars. As we went farther away from the center towards the river we found great little restaurants for the locals. We had to stop and try snacks and glasses of wine at many of them. Verona is also where Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is based and though of course the characters are fictional, this has not stopped the clever Veronians from cashing in on the story and making Juliet's balcony a major tourist attraction. There is a lovely bronze statue of Juliet whose right breast is very shiny as it is rumored to bring good luck to those who rub it. We all took our turns. The concert started at 9 so we went to see what was left of the crowd after the gates had been opened to let the ticket holders in. The place was still mobbed. Thousands of girls from all over Europe had come hoping to get tickets even though they had been sold out for months. They were screaming and singing along to the music as though inside the walls. These boys have the effect of the Beatles on fans but doubt they have the talent or the longevity.

A little aside here. We girls of the '70's really missed out on this boy band stuff. The '60's had not only the Beatles but The Stones and The Doors etc. The '80's had all those "Second English Invasion" bands like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. What did we have? The Jackson Five and The Osmonds. Really? I had a poster of David Cassidy from the Partridge Family up on my wall. The guy was shirtless, white and hairless and scrawny. I probably out-weighed him.

At 10:30 the show was over and the floodgates were opened. It took a half an hour for the girls to reach us but it was worth the wait. Best people watching ever. You would think we were watching the aftermath of a natural disaster. The tears! Hundreds of girls were sobbing, supported on the arms of friends, mothers and fathers. The others were crazed with huge unblinkng eyes, walking zombie-like, probably repeating the mantra, "I can't believe I saw them...I can't believe....". Eventually our clear-headed but somewhat deafened girls found us and we headed home. It took over an hour to get out of the city and three to get home. They girls talked up a storm for the first half an hour then all went quiet.