Italia vs. Spain

As many of you probably heard, Italy played Spain in the Eurocup final.  There was no better place to watch the game than from Italy's capital, Rome. Kristin and I headed down with a few friends and met up with Carl.  We then headed to Circo Massimo, Circus Maximus, where all the action was going to be taking place. It was really a cool location from which to watch the game because this is where the Romans used to have their chariot races.  Standing on that same ground with thousands of Romans to watch this game was truly impressive.  They had multiple big screens up and tens of thousands of people poured out to watch the game.  

 Circo Massimo two hours before the game

We bought ourselves some ITALIA shirts, a few flags so that we'd be in spirit and fit in. Some nice girls added some facepaint and the ensemble was complete.  We made our way as close to the screens as possible.  Even though it was hard for us short people (me in particular) to see the screen, we had a blast.  When the Italian national anthem played, the place went crazy! Red and green smoke, sparklers, shouts, and even tears. There were a few brave spanish cupporters who congregated together.  There were some rude gestures made towards them whem their anthem played.

 

 

ITALIA

Sadly Italy was crushed 4-0 by Spain. With 5 minutes left we began to make our way towards the exit hoping to avoid any drunk angry Italians.  On our way out Spain scored the two last goals and we were glad we chose to make out way out.  It took a while since there were so many people, but we finally were out on the street.  We only saw one fight break out but we were able to avoid any "danger".  We grabbed pizza before getting Carl a cab back to the apartment and we headed home.  We did get some nice words of appreciation from Italians for keeping our Italy gear on.

Matt, Connor, Carl, Abby and Kristin

Now, remember that couple we took a picture on at the top of the Florence Duomo? When in a bar after the game, Carl went to go grab something from the bartender and ran back saying "it's them, it's the American couple!!!". At first we were super confused, but finally realized it was the same couple from Florence! Of course we went over to say hi and talk to them.  It was really funny to run into them in such an unlikely place.  Then were taking with an Australia couple who were friendly as well (they'll come into play soon enough).