I can die happy, now...

...for I have officially attended a soccer game in Italy. BOOYA. 

Background: I have been wanting to go to a soccer game in Italy probably since I even understood that Italians love calcio just as much as they love smoking. I mean, who doesn't want to be surrounded by the most passionate people in the world enjoying the sport they love more than anything? Italian life goal: complete. 

I was able to secure 20 euro tickets to go to last night's game against Lecce, a town from super-southern Italy...pretty much as far south as you can go. This is important because Northern Italians generally hate Southern Italians so there were some interesting cultural tensions going on. Bologna, the well-known  RossoBlu, didn't have as big a crowd as I had hoped for but whoever was there made sure that they made up for those who were not. We were in the curva, aka the curved section around the stadium, right behind one of the goals. The rules in the curva are as follows: sit or stand where you can find space, seat numbers matter not. Upon discovering this now obvious fact (this is Italy, after all, why did we think it would be organized?) we miraculously found 3 empty seats which allowed us complete view of the field. Perfect. I was sitting next to an Italian man in his 50's who had a moustache and wouldn't yell during the game, but rather would mutter under his breath directions and commands to the team, such as avanti, giù, su, and my favorite: segna un gol--score a goal. Thanks, Captain Obvious, for pointing out the objective of the game.

Another rule of the curva: you must have giant banners and flags, know all the chants and hate Lecce with all your heart for the following 90 minutes (if you don't already hate them just for being from the South.) The man sitting next to me was an exception: the other Italians surrounding us were much more verbal, shouting profanities for no reason and when any call was made not in favor of Bologna, threatening to set the referee's house on fire. 

I love Italy. 

The best part about the game was that it was scoreless for about 87 minutes...until Bologna scored. Twice. In literally 10 seconds. It was AWESOME. I mean, I had been hoping for ONE Bologna goal, but two?! I missed the second one because I had been taking pictures of the crowd going absolutely craaaaazy when all of a sudden there was a second wave of Italian, soccer-related joy--which is an intense kind of happiness, let me tell you. Bologna had pulled off another goal within seconds of the first, and I thought the curva  would explode, not just because of the intense reaction to the goals but because there was some sort of fire happening lower in the stands. Fireworks? Flare? I don't know....all I know is that there was a lot of smoke. That, coupled with the buckets of second hand smoke I had inhaled due to my proximity to so many smoking Italians probably means that I have some sort of lung disease now. 

Totally worth it.