But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. Yesterday around noon a group of 8 students, 4 adults, and 1 child began our journey to Rome to see, you guessed it, a soccer (calcio here) match. We drove in 3 cars, and my friend, Annie, and I drove with friends of our Italian teacher and the reason we were able to make this trip, Alessandro. This couple consisted of a man from Connecticut and a woman from Slovenia who had been living just outside Orvieto for the past six months and had gotten their house through Alessandro who works for the government - this was the extent of information we drew from them on our entire journey of roughly 3 1/2 - 4 hours.
The drive itself was entertaining, however, at least for us students because we hadn't been driven in a car to Rome before. It was also somewhat of an adventure as Italians kind of have their own idea of what driving rules/laws are and they don't always match what is written down. For instance, should there be painted lines on the road indicating where the lanes are? Not necessary, apparently. I mean, who really needs them when it's rush-hour traffic? Also, people tend to just park wherever they want, even if that is halfway in the road or blocking a turn. Oddly enough, though, no one really seems to mind. No one honks if someone cuts them off or if someone races ahead on the side of the freeway. In fact, no one honks unless they are trying to make someone aware of them so they don't get hit. I could get used to that aspect of this driving experience...
So, we made it to the stadium and found parking on the side of the road (no public parking lots needed here) and started to make our way inside. The couple we drove with were not sitting with us, so they walked us halfway around the stadium and pointed out the way to our entrance where we would hopefully meet up with our group, made plans to regroup at the car after the game, and then left to go pick up their tickets. Annie and I made it inside, after reluctantly relinquishing our water bottles to the security at the gate (to prevent any undue worry, I'll reassure you now that my bottle was indeed there when I returned and after washing it with boiling water and soap, it's as good as new), where we thankfully saw our group almost immediately - you wouldn't believe how confusing tickets can be when you don't know the words for "row" or "seat" or really anything helpful in finding your way in a stadium.
Our seats were in the Roma section (obviously) that we decided was intended for those who want to cheer loudly and may need some watching by security in order to keep the rowdiness in check. We were bordered on both sides by plastic barriers and then an entire section of empty seats, a row of security and then the Bari fans. Like this:
The team we were playing was from an island off the southern tip of Italy called Bari. The fans at this game were only slightly crazy - I can definitely imagine them going completely crazy and needing all those security people. At the beginning of the game, and I'm assuming this is a regular tradition since both sides did it, during the announcements and the team song the fans held up their team scarves and swayed with the song, which was great fun to watch.
And then the game started. Now, from the beginning Roma was favored to win, but we didn't imagine exactly how this would go. 3 goals in the first 15ish minutes!? A hat-trick by Totti!? In his first game back!? This is the stuff of dreams, folks :)
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