Well, the French just love their vacations...Every 6 weeks they have a 2 week vacation for all the schools!! And the teachers here still think that they are being overworked. It all works pretty well for me because travelling around Europe has proven to be an easy and quite inexpensive task if you plan it properly. The start of my trip was getting to Milan and getting situated with an old friend from high school named Hannah Burnsy she hooked me up with a place to stay about an hour away from the Olympics and the day after having arrived, her and a couple of her friends rented a car and we were off to Turino... The city itself isn't a beautiful place; it is one of the more industrial towns of in Italy, which is dominated by many of the large European Car manufacturers, so the city itself seemed very cold and boxy. But none of that changed the feeling that I got when we were approaching the opening and closing ceremonies site and came in to view of the Olympic flame. It is mystical. The flame itself is about 200 feet in the air, high above all of the buildings and stadiums in the area and gives you a sense of where you are, and the magnitude of the games that are currently taking place. The first night we were there I got to see Finland play Czech. I wanted to see the Canada game but as it turned out, the Canada game was in the afternoon and the people we were with didn't seem to think that it was a priority to arrive until the Czech game started because that's what they had tickets too. I was committed to the rental car and the people we were with seemed to think that outlet shopping was more important than getting to the Olympics. I can say that I was frustrated and very much wishing I could have made it to the Canada game, but the game I saw was intense and the Czech fans we really exciting to be around, they were loud, drunk and all wearing team gear. As the rest of the group I was with though that it would be cool to go in and watch warm ups, I decided it would be cooler to head to the beer tent. In the Olympic beer tent you have some great elements, 1) Beer 2) Food 3) Music and 4) Whatever country has just won the most recent hockey game dancing around the entire place chanting patriotic songs. In this case, Sweden had just won and the place was a sea of yellow singing to the music and jumping around. I stood there praying that I would get a chance to do this and support my country by drinking beer and singing songs, although one thing I noticed is that Canada lacks chants, I mean sure we have the National Anthem (which is nice) but we don't have chants that people all over Canada sing. Either way, the Game was a 3-2 win for the Fins and it was won mid way through the third period, which led to a very exciting finish where Finland’s (Suomi) goalie stood on his head to preserve the win. I got back to Milan and met Kevin, who was also on vacation and we decided that since we were in Italy we had to see what Venice was all about. The next day we hopped on a train in Milan and were off to Venice. 3 hours and 5 cribbage games later we were there. What a scene. The city truly is a masterpiece. The canals running and the boats, the churches and monuments. We found a pretty cheap place to say with a decent room and met another young Canadian named Luke. As I was walking around Venice the following day, just getting lost in the alleys and then trying to find my way, I couldn't help but think about how practical this city would have been 500 years ago. Transporting people and goods made easy, access to a massive port and a large community and right in the center of the mediterranean. Now it is so out of date that all it can do to survive is cater to its massive tourist industry. But it is a must see place in the world, unlike any other I have seen. Two days later we were back on the train to head back to the Olympics and catch the Canada Russia game which I had bought tickets for on the Internet. Now, a month before going to the Olympics I figured it would be either impossible, or very, very expensive to get tickets to the Olympic hockey quarterfinals. Because of this I figured my best bet was to buy them in advance from the website. WRONG! These hockey games just were not filling up, and to make matters worse, the game I ended up with tickets to was the USA FIN game. After paying a large sum for the tickets I figured it would be easy to scalp them off and head to the Canada game and buy tickets from some scalpers there. It just didn't happen, there was no interest in hockey in Italy and most of the tickets were going for about 40€ just to cover the scalpers losses. So we went to the game, and it turned out to be a great. Finland won by 1, and we were about 6 rows from the ice. Spectacular and totally worth it. Afterwards, the Canada game was starting in a half an hour and we rushed to try to find a place to watch it near the stadium(the tickets were going for 200€) and discovered that there was a Canada house for the players and families of the players with TV's and food. We strutted in and made out case but it seemed we had walked into a brick wall, the women at the door was showing no sympathy, but I could see she was genuinely a good person so we left, let her cool off and came back. Persistence seems to pay off in this crazy world and in no time we were in the VIP lounge with all the big wig's watching Canada Russia on a huge screen TV with a CBC feed (Coaches Corner was great), amongst fellow Canadians and being now SERVED beer and food, from the same lady who had told us we couldn't come in, and now she absolutely loved us. On the way out, I'm suspecting after a few drinks and the European atmosphere we each gave her the cheek-to-cheek kisses!! Unfortunately Canada lost and there gold medal hopes shattered and with that we left for Holland in the morning.