someone else doing the talking
well, we no longer have the alternately pleasure/burden of conversing in French. While it was one of the reasons I came to Europe and I really did get better at French in only two weeks, I'm sort of relieved to be in a country where I have no clue at the language and can just talk in English the whole time. Joe and I are relieved to have Megan Batchelor, a friend from Rice, doing the talking for us at the moment. I'm sure Lilit and anyone else who knows a whiff of Italian would be jealous at having it all around, but it's very foreign to me. I had trouble reading the sports newspaper. And it's the only place in Europe, I think, where soccer is not football. It's calcio (CAL-cho or something like that).
We took three trains Saturday, leaving Lyon at 0605 and changing trains in Geneva and Milano. We had time to get pizza for lunch in Milano, and I'm psyched about eating pizza at like every meal. We got to Firenze (Florence) at 4:45, an hour later than the train we wanted to catch. But Megan rocks, so she was there to meet us, and her landlady's daughter, Stefy, had a car to drive us around a bit.
Megan's staying at this awesome villa on a hill overlooking Florence. We drove up there, and the four of us had an amiable chat while Megan and Stefy cooked dinner (we volunteered to help, but most of you know my reputation in the kitchen). The soccer game had been moved up to Saturday night, so Stefy drove us down toward the stadium and we headed in. Fiorentina, the wildly popular local club, have an interesting recent history. They were very successful in the late/mid 90s, as I understand it, but went bankrupt some four years ago and were kicked out of Serie A, Italy's top league. They had to go three leagues down to Serie C2 and work their way up, year by year, to Serie C1, Serie B, and Serie A (I think it was a straight progression). But they're in fourth place in Serie A at the moment and playing great football. They demolished Parma 4-1 behind a hat trick from Toni Luca and one of the best goals I have ever seen from Christian Fiore.
The stadium, where my parents went six years ago, was one of the most interesting parts for me. The architecture of stadiums is fairly different here than in other parts of Europe. The field is usually more separated from the stands than in other stadiums, and the seating areas are more spread out and horizontal, rather than being built vertically on top of each other (I think the San Siro, in Milan, is an exception). Joe properly estimated the capacity of Stadio Artemio Franchi at near 50,000 (it's 47,232, according to worldstadiums.com), and it turns out it was built in 1931. But it was renovated for World Cup Italia 1990. The United States played its first World Cup game in 40 years here, losing 5-1 to Czechoslovakia and later 2-1 to Austria, sandwiched around a 1-0 loss to Italy in Rome. I think it's really neat that I got to see that stadium. What we would call the end-zone areas are called curves here, and that's where the big Italian fan culture is. We sat on the less hardcore of the curves, but it was still exciting and vibrant, with constant chanting and singing. We picked up some words and tunes, but definitely not all. I think our favorite part of the game was the guy behind us and his girlfriend. They made out a lot, but after each goal the guy would go crazy and cheer for about 7 seconds, then turn to the girl with his mouth like wide open and they would make out in a celebratory fashion. She seemed rather less enthused about the game than he did.
We left the stadium singing "Toni Goal, Toni Goal, Toni goal" in honor of the hat trick hero. We got gellato right outside the stadium and then climbed the mountain back to the villa. Its only real drawback is the shower/lack thereof ... you kinda have to crouch to avoid hitting your head on adjacent cabinets while trying to keep the water aimed against the wall. Hilarious.
Today being Sunday, we headed into Firenze around 11, again with a ride from Stefy. She accompanied us to the local market to get some sunglasses and had significantly better bargaining success without us around, when they treated her as an Italian, rather than an American (she has dual citizenship and great language skills). Then we looked at the local cathedral (duomo) from the outside ... it really blows my mind because of its colorful exterior, which I just have not seen on many old churches, especially in Europe. We have more churches and a museum or two planned for today and tomorrow.
We're about halfway through the trip but only have a week and a half left on the continent. Also, you can't really fly from Milano to Portugal, so it looks like we'll have to settle for Espana as our taste of the Iberian.
Shout-outs to the MetroStars for opening the MLS Cup playoffs with a 1-0 win over New England and to the Astros for making the World Series. I'm really ticked to miss both the all-star game and the world series in Houston, but what can you do? Hopefully they can turn it around. Oh, and a delayed shout-out to the Rice soccer team for beating SMU several weeks ago and carrying a 4-1-1 conference record into today's big game against UTEP. And will somebody please find me a job?
Next stop: Monday or Tuesday, Milano, Italy
Next game: Wednesday, Stadio Giuseppe Meazza (aka the San Siro), Inter Milan v. Roma
We took three trains Saturday, leaving Lyon at 0605 and changing trains in Geneva and Milano. We had time to get pizza for lunch in Milano, and I'm psyched about eating pizza at like every meal. We got to Firenze (Florence) at 4:45, an hour later than the train we wanted to catch. But Megan rocks, so she was there to meet us, and her landlady's daughter, Stefy, had a car to drive us around a bit.
Megan's staying at this awesome villa on a hill overlooking Florence. We drove up there, and the four of us had an amiable chat while Megan and Stefy cooked dinner (we volunteered to help, but most of you know my reputation in the kitchen). The soccer game had been moved up to Saturday night, so Stefy drove us down toward the stadium and we headed in. Fiorentina, the wildly popular local club, have an interesting recent history. They were very successful in the late/mid 90s, as I understand it, but went bankrupt some four years ago and were kicked out of Serie A, Italy's top league. They had to go three leagues down to Serie C2 and work their way up, year by year, to Serie C1, Serie B, and Serie A (I think it was a straight progression). But they're in fourth place in Serie A at the moment and playing great football. They demolished Parma 4-1 behind a hat trick from Toni Luca and one of the best goals I have ever seen from Christian Fiore.
The stadium, where my parents went six years ago, was one of the most interesting parts for me. The architecture of stadiums is fairly different here than in other parts of Europe. The field is usually more separated from the stands than in other stadiums, and the seating areas are more spread out and horizontal, rather than being built vertically on top of each other (I think the San Siro, in Milan, is an exception). Joe properly estimated the capacity of Stadio Artemio Franchi at near 50,000 (it's 47,232, according to worldstadiums.com), and it turns out it was built in 1931. But it was renovated for World Cup Italia 1990. The United States played its first World Cup game in 40 years here, losing 5-1 to Czechoslovakia and later 2-1 to Austria, sandwiched around a 1-0 loss to Italy in Rome. I think it's really neat that I got to see that stadium. What we would call the end-zone areas are called curves here, and that's where the big Italian fan culture is. We sat on the less hardcore of the curves, but it was still exciting and vibrant, with constant chanting and singing. We picked up some words and tunes, but definitely not all. I think our favorite part of the game was the guy behind us and his girlfriend. They made out a lot, but after each goal the guy would go crazy and cheer for about 7 seconds, then turn to the girl with his mouth like wide open and they would make out in a celebratory fashion. She seemed rather less enthused about the game than he did.
We left the stadium singing "Toni Goal, Toni Goal, Toni goal" in honor of the hat trick hero. We got gellato right outside the stadium and then climbed the mountain back to the villa. Its only real drawback is the shower/lack thereof ... you kinda have to crouch to avoid hitting your head on adjacent cabinets while trying to keep the water aimed against the wall. Hilarious.
Today being Sunday, we headed into Firenze around 11, again with a ride from Stefy. She accompanied us to the local market to get some sunglasses and had significantly better bargaining success without us around, when they treated her as an Italian, rather than an American (she has dual citizenship and great language skills). Then we looked at the local cathedral (duomo) from the outside ... it really blows my mind because of its colorful exterior, which I just have not seen on many old churches, especially in Europe. We have more churches and a museum or two planned for today and tomorrow.
We're about halfway through the trip but only have a week and a half left on the continent. Also, you can't really fly from Milano to Portugal, so it looks like we'll have to settle for Espana as our taste of the Iberian.
Shout-outs to the MetroStars for opening the MLS Cup playoffs with a 1-0 win over New England and to the Astros for making the World Series. I'm really ticked to miss both the all-star game and the world series in Houston, but what can you do? Hopefully they can turn it around. Oh, and a delayed shout-out to the Rice soccer team for beating SMU several weeks ago and carrying a 4-1-1 conference record into today's big game against UTEP. And will somebody please find me a job?
Next stop: Monday or Tuesday, Milano, Italy
Next game: Wednesday, Stadio Giuseppe Meazza (aka the San Siro), Inter Milan v. Roma
posted by Jon at
07:55
2 Comments:
sounds like lots of fun. don't miss the baptistery near the duomo. we're watching the job ads - should have it all sewed up by the time you get home! :) Love Mom
By
Anonymous, at 12:35 PM
Glad all seems to be working out so well! In Milano, the Duomo is nice, but I found the S. Ambrogio really interesting...parts of it date from 379 and there are some fantastic 5th century mosaics. The food should be wonderful.
Love Dad :)
By
Anonymous, at 1:29 PM
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