I-TAL-I-A

Last night Italy WON the World Cup!!!!!! I am still shocked myself and I can only conclude that this great onslaught of good fortune for Italy was brought on by yours truly. First, Germany was an upset and then France! My night began with some friends of Jane and Marks named Jim and Stephanie. We went to this little wine bar and watched the first third of the game or so and I ate some gnocci, which is some of the best pasta around and is only made in Italy. When we thought things were getting interesting, we headed to Piazza Napoleono where we watched the rest of it. The game was really exciting - there was never a dull moment and there were so many goal shots attempted that I almost had a heart attack! Our goalie, Buffon, is one of my all-time heroes now. I cant believe the things he caught. Anyway, we watched the game, sticking around through both overtimes and the shootout, when everything went absolutely postal. As soon as the game ended and all of our jumping up and down had ceased, everyone waved thier flags like maniacs and started climbing the light poles to throw their fists in the air from a higher vantage point. There were smoke bombs (completely harmless and relatively small but with a great spreading capacity) released and also some really bright fireworks. The carabinieri (military police) and firefighters were on standby in the square in uniform in case anything got out of hand, but nothing did. As we were walking home, festivities were just entering full swing and we noticed the typical post-game traffic and moped honking. One thing that was new were some small three-wheeled cars used on farms here that look like very tiny trucks loaded to the brim with people so that the wheels were actually compressed so far down I thought they might pop off. Two of them were painted green, red and white for Italy and covered with balloons. It was so funny how people planned and planned for this victory and then, to see it unleashed, was like opening Pandoras box. Beautifully dangerous! The honking and screaming continued all night and while I was able to sleep through it, Jane got up several times to look out at it, she said. I cant believe how lucky I am to be here...especially since Italy hasnt won since something like 1982!
A sad thing that happened in the game that you may have noticed is that one of the French players got a red card and was thrown from the game. It was his last game of his career and so, bittersweet. People in Lucca are saying that one of the Italians said something about his being homosexual and that it was too sore of a spot so he head butted him for it. Ouch! Also, an irony of the Italian victory is that recently (this past year) many of Italys teams were implicated in scandals involving fixed games. Individual players were found out and the most corrupt team was said to be Juventus. Funnily, most of the players on the World Cup team are from Juventus! The World Cup cannot be fixed, so at least we know it didnt carry over into this victory. Anyway, it was a great night and one that I will always remember! I took a bunch of pictures and those will be posted on my Flickr site soon.