We all had various reasons to go to Italy months in advance. We all wanted to get something out of the trip, and we all got something rather unexpected. And I’ll now relate to you that something rather unexpected. What we all got (except Nathan, who slept) were stories to tell about the atmosphere of an excited Italy playing in the World Cup 2006 finals. I’ll tell you mine.

We landed in Rome on a bright, sunny Sunday morning– by chance, the morning of the World Cup finals between Italy and France. The city was most defiitely in high spirits. All day, people were walking around the city proudly wearing jerseys or donning giant Italian flags. People on the move in cars and smartcars honked randomly to show their excitement while others walked singing either the White Stripe’s Seven Nation Army signature riff or the national anthem (but mostly the White Stripes thing). The fervent fans easily passed on their energy to even tourists like us.

When it was getting closer to gametime at 22:00 CET on Sunday, dozens headed toward the Circus Maximus (Circo Massimo in Italian) to cheer and watch the game together on very large displays. We went to eat dinner at a small pizzeria while the game began. People who were also eating pizza at the same place were eating outside watching the televisions there. Many restaurants also had set up displays for people to gather and hang out at. The top of our hotel was nicely set up for a World Cup-watching party. I can’t say the city was silent with excitement. It was instead loud with it. Every Roman, or perhaps every Italian, set their eyes on a screen, hoping that the next move would be in Italy’s favor.

In any case, when I finished eating, I began looking for some of my friends who wanted to have the experience of being with Italians watching that final game at a bar. I couldn’t find them. Eventually I found that they were still at the restaurant but now outside under the canopy with the rest of the people who were eaitng and watching. So I sat with them and watched there. But I was tired and jet-lagged. As much as I wanted to stay awake and watch the game in the capital of one of the World Cup finalists to cheer with them, I couldn’t help but fall asleep, over and over again. However, I certainly woke up when everyone around me was loud. There were several instances of that, such as when goals were scored or missed, when Zidane headbutted Materazzi, and when the shootout was about to begin because of the tie in regular time.

I couldn’t even stay awake during the whole shootouts. I drifted in and out, trying to stay awake to watch the final seconds of an event that had shaped and would shape Italians for quite some time. In any case, I can recall the waiting faces and the bated breaths of everyone sitting at the tables outside the pizzeria, how they watched the two televisions so intently, waiting for the next kick. Italy would get one in, then France would, and so on. They would cheer and be happy every favorable kick, and they would jeer and be angry in the other cases. There were a couple of exceptions; France missed twice. In those cases, the Italians would act at least as happy as when their national team scored. It was exciting. I may have been really sleepy, but that doesn’t mean it was that cool.

Well, then Italy won. Immediately with the last kick in, everyone jumped up out of their chairs. I took a picture of this immediate moment, but it didn’t turn out too well. Somehow one of the televisions went off at that moment as well, probably because someone accidentally pulled the cord while jumping up. But that didn’t really matter, because Italy had won, and that was what mattered to them. They were the champions of the world– campioni del mondo.

Soon afterwards, we rushed back to the hotel to not get caught in the after-game turbulent happiness. Even there, however, we were not safe. I went to the top floor, finding that the waiters were spraying people with champagne bottles. Some were throwing plates and wine and champagne bottles off the roof into the archaeological site, an ancient gladiator school, next to our hotel, the Gladiatori. Broken plates and glasses could likewise be seen on the floor of the roof patio. It was crazy, but it was also so exciting. It was my very first day in Europe in my life, and this was not even an everyday occurrence here, which would probably not even be an occurrence at all anywhere in America for something like this.

As far as I remember, it was then around 10:00 or so at night. We were all happy, eating the cake they had there and waving flags on the roof. We began to see lots of cars and people passing through towards the Circus Maximus. Very many of them sang the signature of Seven Nation Army. Cars honked wildly, waving flags out their windows. It was loud. And one of my roommates, Nathan, was sleeping through it all, so we woke him up. It got even louder and even busier. I looked out the window of my hotel room and could see cars lined all the way down the road. People were ignoring traffic signals, rushing in the direction of the Circus Maximus. People were walking, very happily. It was all quite a sight from the top. I went to sleep at around 1:30, and the traffic of both cars and people passing by had only increased since the end of the game. It was extremely noisy, but as jet-lagged as I was, it wasn’t too hard to sleep. So I did.

Now even the next day, people were proudly honking and waving flags. We saw several instances of graffiti that said “CAMPIONI DEL MONDO,” sometimes with “ITALIA” in addition. We could tell people had gone pretty crazily happy the night before. And we could witness a very good slice of it ourselves, from the top of our hotel next to the Coliseum. It really was amazing. Our trip to Italy could be completely justified by that one day. There were lots of cool, interesting, and fun things in Italy, but that first day was really the experience of the trip, and it was good.

Edit: Here’s an example of what it was like outside in Rome after the game, as well as a couple of my pictures: