WOW! It was an awesome experience! Good to be American.

While I am very sorry to have missed the opportunity to party with everyone, it was an awesome experience. It is something neither I nor my son will ever forget. Our travel companions have the same opinion that it is truly the experience of a lifetime. The information gathered in this blog was very helpful and I appreciate the help.

Although I have many, MANY stories I will share just one:

On Saturday we decided to try our luck at the tents. We had such a great time at the tents we decided to go back to the tents. We got stuck in a mass of people trying to get into the tent. We were smashed together and all trying to get in. Every time a server would come out to take people into the tent, and everyone in the mass of people would hold up their hand to try and get in. We were in, "line" for about an hour and a half trying to get into the tent.

While we were in line a waitress came out to take some people into the tent. She looked at a bunch of people in line and refused them. She looked at me and the 4 fingers I had in the air (a way of informing her that there were 4 in our party). She looked at me and the following exchange took place between her and I (remember that she is looking past a bunch of people in front of us while talking to me):

Waitress: American? 4, yes?
Me: Yes, 4.
Waitress: American yes?
Me: Yes, American, there are 4 of us.
Waitress: No Italian, all American.
Me: Yes, the 4 of us are Americans.
Waitress: Come vis me!

At which point we snaked our way through the crowd, under the rope, past security, and entered the tent with the waitress. On our way in I asked the waitress why she asked so many questions about American. She proceeded to tell me that she did not want any Italians in her area because they order one (1) beer, they don't tip, and they stay all day.

I gave her a 10 euro tip with our first order of beers. I wanted to make sure that she knew we were not Italians. She smiled, gave me a hug, and thanked me. About 10 minutes later 2 people left a table next to us. Our waitress went back outside and promptly replaced those two with, you guessed it, Americans.