I Campioni Del Mondo Siamo Noi!

Italy ceased to function yesterday at 8pm. I witnessed it all in Circus Maximus among 300,000 other tifosi, while 30 million eyes across the country were watching the same exact thing.

And afterwards, Italy descended--actually, ascended-- into a state of utter delirium and anarchy. I reckon that the atmosphere after the game must be similar to what happens when a country overthrows its government, wins a war (edit: in the stereotypical, movie sense-- war is always a terrible thing!) or something of similar extraordinarity (yes, I just made up a word).

People painted their bodies, painted their cars, painted their dogs, sang and screamed in the streets, waved massive flags, scaled various building and ruins, ran around in their underwear, drove drunk, rode in dump trucks, climbed street lights, lit various shit on fire, set off flares & fireworks (nb: not juvenile sparklers-- we're talking m80s here)...all of which rendered Rome one big land mine and pedestrian obstacle course. It was fantastic. The most spectacular thing I saw was the Trevi Fountain turned into the community swimming pool of Rome. At any one point, there were about 500 people in it as if it were a club. Peope scaled every crevice of the fountain and its statues, covering ancient mythological figures with Italian flags and well, themselves.

There's something really thrilling about being in a foreign country knowing people openly and carelessly transgress the law without consequence. As another example not nearly so life-threatening: on Friday and Saturday I was in Milan and went to a amusement park called Movieland with my cousin and her boyfriend. I knew it wasn't going to be half as good as any one of the Six Flags parks but I knew I'd still have fun because where the rides lacked, the (lack of) security picked up: the rides were mediocre at best but the thrill was in the lack of safety, a known characteristic of Europe in general, in contrast with the United States' overprotectiveness (or should I just say fear of lawsuits?) The ride operators would even sarcastically say (in the cheesiest/best wannabe American accent) to buckle up our seatbelts when there were none. Har har.

Anyway, if what happened in Rome last night took place in New York, it would be deemed 'rioting'...but in Italy, it was celebrating. In fact, the celebration in Little Italy was broken up promptly by NYPD by 7:30pm. I really get heated when I hear things like this. What's wrong with a little celebration? And surely it was no where near the level of intensity that appeared anywhere in Italy or for that matter, anywhere within Europe last night. Ugh, boo to America's killjoy, fun-suppressing mentality.

Hopefully later tonight I'll be able to upload some of my photos from Rome (Fran actually offered to use his computer, so I'm taking advantage.)

As for the poor act of sportsmanship by Zizou, rumor has it that Materazzi called him a terrorist. Who knows. Too bad such a legend went down in history like a bull and saw red.

So, 24 years later, Italy has brought it back home again. Forza Azzurri!


P.S. Chi non salta é francese! Eh! Eh!