This is for the family golfers…They had a tournament. Tee off the Ponte Vecchio onto the green which is in the middle of the river. They had like 6 holes I think. Talk about a water hazard!
So my final week is almost up and I have my suitcases basically packed and probably overweight. This week I have been soaking up the last bit of Italian life for a while. Sunday, I went to my last Fiorentina soccer match. Oh my gosh was it a humbling experience…
The sky was awesome
And luckily, the storm missed us
So we get on the bus all excited…I have on my jersey thinking I’m all cool and showing spirit or whatever and Kate has on a Fiorentina sweatshirt too. She tells me that a friend told her that “real” soccer fans only wear the club’s scarves. I’m like well the last time I went everyone else had on jerseys and everything. We get on the bus and on our way, police go whizzing by with thier sirens blasting. They were definately escorting the Fiorentina team bus. That was exciting. While we are on the bus, we notice everyone has on scarves. Aparently, I forgot that the last game I went to was with the school and everyone around me was a student. Whoops.
So we are sitting on the bus and everyone is looking at us and talking about us…in Italian of course. It was VERY awkward. As we get off, a lady figures out what we are talking about and tries to make us feel better and says “Bellisimo” It didn’t really help.
We get off feeling awkward and start heading toward our section in the stadium. We are at the very last one so it’s like a 10 minute walk from the front. We go through security and I’m waiting for Kate. Apparently her SLR camera is not allowed. They tell her she has to put it in a locker somewhere so we head off to find the locker but to no avail. We go back and they are kind of mad but one of the guys walks us over to where it is supposed to be (at the front where we first came in so this is our 2nd 10 minute walk to the front). He can’t find it and asks around. No one knows where it is. We walk back.
So we go back in past security but not actually into the fan part yet and he walks around trying to figure out where it is. So we keep going in and out of where fans are coming in and the security people are like “Wait ticket” but we keep walking.
Then a guy gets on the radio so everyone knows about us. He finally gives up and we go to the other place that has lockers. Which is on the other side of the stadium. We definitely walked around the stadium a couple times…without scarves on. Finally we find the lockers which are not lockers but an ambulance who puts stuff in plastic bins. Luckily, I just brought the little camera. We later found out that the camera was not allowed because you could throw it onto the field if you got too upset and start a fight.
But Fiorentina did win. There were only 5 yellow cards and two people had to be carried out on stretchers. However, once they got to the sidelines, they were miraculously healed and came running back onto the field. They took faking it to a whole new level.
Warming up
I also had my last Italian classes this week. I actually ended up with As in all my classes so that’s exciting. For advertisement, we had to do car commercials and one of the cars my group did was Volkswagen. Yeah definitely spelled it Volkswagon. He asked me about it and asked if I knew it was German. I said yes but I thought we were presenting in English. He said well why didn’t you call it peoplewagon then. I got a minus for that. But later on I made to slick comments and got it erased and ended up with an a.
Wednesday, we all went to the best restaurant in Florence. It was amazing. Soo good. We got there when they opened at 7:30 and didn’t leave until they closed at like 10:30. I am going to miss long leisurely meals like that.
I also went to Assisi for the last time for a while yesterday. It was rainy but it was still soo pretty. They had a life-size nativity in the yard at St. Francesco as well as a contemporary one in the piazza thing in front of it. That was my favorite. We tried to make the 5:18 train but we missed it and the next one didn’t leave until 7:18 so we decided to get some supper (Jordan and her sister came with me). We go into one restaurant which had open in the window might I add and the guy acts all weird. Apparently he’s not open and thinks we are crazy because “no one opens for dinner here until 7:30!” Luckily, good ol McDonalds was open so we ate there. My second and last McDonalds meals while here this semester! This one had a McDrive.
I have two suitcases packed that could possibly weigh too much and I’m going out today to take a few more pictures and a few more Christmas presents though I’m not sure how much room I have…
Liz left this morning. Megan leaves tonight for Rome where she is flying out of and everyone else leaves tomorrow.