Real Football

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Out and about early this morning. Headed over to the abbey to see if we can pickup tickets for the Siena opera, which is to take place in the ruined abbey tomorrow night. We get to see Il Flauto Magico, by some fellow named Mozart. See...and y’all thought I was just a country bumpkin with no dam couth.
After getting our tickets, we hit the road to do some cruising and see what this part of Italy holds. We headed off towards Grosseto until my Lovely Bride announced she had found an “interesting road” on the map for us to take. I made the turn and the “interesting road” turned into a gravel one laner through the local equivalent of a national forest. The promised turnoff for a ruined castle never appeared, but after an hour in second gear, we at least returned to a paved road. It can be the little things which sometimes mean the most.
Rained in this afternoon. We came back to the house to take a nap and hand wash a few things, so naturally it started raining right after the LB got the clothes hung out. Rain kept up through time to go find dinner. There’s nothing quite like driving in the rain on twisting mountain roads in the dark, with no idea of where you are going. We ended up at a ristorante named Il Palazzetto, not too far from our house. As we arrived, the pre-game festivities for the France –Italia Futbol match are underway on the projection TV which was moved to project on an entire wall. Dinner was memorable in that we both managed to forget our phrase books, and thus were at the mercy of the non-English speaking staff. We have no idea what we ate, but it was very, very good. As the game began, the mood in the place ramped up quickly. Food and service became secondary as the Italians and French fought it out, with the local boys demonstrating their superior ball control techniques early in the match, and with the room erupting from time to time in celebration of Italian good moves, or French faux pas. As we made our exit after the first period, with Italy leading 1-0, the LB asked me why college football can’t be that exciting. Nearly an hour of non-stop action, a half-time for the Band, followed by more full speed action. This instead of the interminable starts and stops for first downs, team time outs, media timeouts, official time outs, etc, which drag an hour of playing time out to 2½ - 3 hours. Now she has a mission and wants A&M to find an Italian coach to fire them up. Maybe she is on to something.