World Cup Champions

Rome, Italy, Sunday, July 9, 2006, 23:55

Italy is World Cup Champions.

Really nothing more to say from Rome. We watched the game from a small family restaurant a couple blocks from our hotel (Piacere Molise, highly recommeded if you're looking for lunch or dinner near the Vatican). Mom, son and daughter worked the tables, dad cooked up dinner, various friends were there too. To say they were excited when Italy won is an understatement.

The city shut down for 2.5 hours as soon as the game started. The restaurant is on a pretty busy street near the Vatican, but not a single car or scooter went by during the game. Only the occaisional bus. Then, moments after victory, the street was flooded with vehicles honking their horns, yelling, waving Italian flags. The son in the restaurant put on "We Are The Champions", as well as an Italian version of the White Stripes's "Seven Nation Army. Turns out the latter is something of an unofficial theme song for the Italian team. We keep hearing the crowd singing the main guitar rift.

It's been about an hour now and the noise on the street hasn't subsided. It's a big big night in Italy.

Oh, we visited the Colosseum and did another RomeWalk as well. Before that, we got to tour the Polizia station to fill out a theft report, someone pickpocketed our camera on the Metro today. Hence no photos this time. And yet another reason Kevin has a general disdain for most mass transit. (Don't worry, one of the main reasons we brought the computer was to download photos each night in case this very thing happened. We'll just have to replace the camera tomorrow.)

But the day ended fabulously. Italy are world champions!