Calcio and Carols

This was the group's final weekend in Bologna, since most people are flying home on the 20th (the same day my parents arrive), and it was a very packed weekend. On Friday evening, we went to a soccer game in which Bologna played the team from Turin. (The Italian word for soccer is calcio, pronounced CAL-chyoh.) We were worried that it would be rainy and freezing, but it didn't rain at all and it only got very cold towards the end of the game. Just being in the stadium with the crazy Italian soccer fans was an experience in itself. I've been to one soccer game before, when I went to Madrid with my choir in March, but it was not nearly as exciting as this game. In Italy, people register as fans for their teams like you would register for a political party, which gives them access to a particular section in the stadium. So all of the Bologna fans were sitting across from us, the Torino fans were sitting in the section two over from us (gated in and surrounded by guards and empty seating sections on either side), and we were sitting in no-man's land, relatively empty. There are some games in which you can't buy tickets if you're not a registered fan, or if you're from a certain area, depending on the rivalries and how dangerous the games are expected to be. And you can't even buy alcohol in the stadium, which I found surprising a) because the fans were so rowdy and b) because the stadium would probably sell a lot of it. It was a very exciting game, and there were a lot of goals scored for a soccer match, the final score being 5-2 Bologna. Watching the fans was easily more than half the fun, especially when they would yell at the players and use very typically Italian hand gestures. When the Torino fans got up to leave after Bologna scored their 4th goal, all of the other fans yelled at them and waved goodbye, shooing them out of the stadium.

Just some medieval architecture in the middle of the stadium...

Scoreboard that broke halfway through the game and then only displayed advertisements

After the game, Nicole and I went to dinner with two of her friends from Chinese class, Martina (at whose apartment we stayed in Mantua) and Chiara. We went to a Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai restaurant, and it was nice to eat Asian cuisine again, even if it was only mediocre. The most interesting part of the meal was that our table was actually an aquarium, rectangular and about 6 inches high, with teeny fish swimming around in it. Kind of disconcerting while you're eating, but yes, fascinating, at the same time.

Last night we went to a Christmas Carols concert put on by the Anglican community in Bologna, basically a congregation of British, Irish, and American ex-pats. The service was beautiful, and it was a lot like Lessons and Carols at Vassar. Actually, I wished that I had known about it in September because I would have loved to sing with the choir, made up of about 20 adults. There were tea candles lit up at the end of each of the pews, and there were Christmas carols interspersed with readings, both in English and Italian. Some of the carols (like Away in a Manger) were to tunes we weren't familiar with, which were actually traditional English melodies. It was fun to hear British and Irish accents - one reader had a beautiful Irish accent which made me want to visit to Ireland, and the British pastor, who has a congregation in Florence, wished us all a "Happy Christmas" at the end. Afterwards, there was a reception, and among Italian food and desserts there were also mini minced meat pies and mulled wine. The minced meat pies exceeded my expectations, since they didn't really taste like meat to me, but had a sweet filling and were covered in powdered sugar. The mulled wine was definitely different, and I liked it because it was warm, spicy, and sweetened, but some of my friends who are more purists when it comes to wine weren't too fond of it. I think that it probably wasn't mulled wine at its best, but I'm glad I got to try it.

Also, Nicole happened upon a copy of The Little Prince in another Italian dialect which she picked up for me - Bolognese! The title is Al Pränzip Fangén, and it doesn't resemble Italian at all. I didn't even know it was published in Bolognese, so I was very excited when she surprised me with it. She also picked up a copy for Adri, our friend from Wellesley who, coincidentally, also collects copies of The Little Prince in different languages.  There are, in fact, at least two of us with this odd, but very charming, quirk!