November 14, 2010: Where the Ladies At?

After a late night yesterday, we slept in a little and then made our way to the stadium to see the Lazio vs. Napoli game. We walked over and even though it took a little more than an hour, it was worth it to see some new parts of the city. We arrived at the stadium just as they were announcing the players and almost everyone was running (not jogging) to get into the stadium. Security doesn't seem tight, but its pretty impressive - to enter the park area where the stadium is, you need to show your ID (our passports) and your tickets - and the name on the ID has to match the name on the ticket. Then to enter the arena, you have to scan your ticket and then someone checks it again against your ID. And then your bags and body are searched (they have women to search the women). I guess they really have a thing against scalping tickets.

Even before we got into the stadium we knew it was going to be crazy. Everyone was singing songs for the Lazio team (not cheers - actual entire songs), and the volume, clarity, and unity of the fans (from outside the stadium) was amazing. We found our seats, which were not used for sitting during any part of the game (we stood on the seats for the entire game). Some observations:

1. The fans are like a family. Everyone seems to know one another, and when the Lazio team scored a goal (which they did twice), our area erupted. Everyone was hugging, kissing, cheering - they were even hugging Mike. I think they were more excited when Lazio scored than they would be if they found out they won the lottery.
2. The fans are here to do two things: watch the game and smoke cigarettes. For the entire game they were singing cheers for Lazio or yelling at the ref/other team, and during both of these activities they were chain smoking. What they were not doing was chit-chatting, eating or heavy drinking. There were people drinking some beer, but the point of coming to the game was not to have a beer with friends.
3. I think I saw ten women at the game today. It was worse than being in engineering school. The only time the men weren't watching the game was when a woman walked by.

In summary, we had a great time. Clearly, it helped that Lazio won, but it was still really fun and we would consider going to another game while we're here. The only other thing I'll say is that it was apparent throughout the game that Lazio seemed to be a much better team than Napoli - they had control of the ball for most of the time.

After the game we made a short visit to the adjacent Stadio dei Marmi, a racetrack surrounded by 60 large statues commissioned by Mussolini in the 1930's. Near the racetrack, my aunt's cousin Layla and her boyfriend Guilio picked us up. We had so much fun with them at dinner last night, we met up with them again to see some sights outside of Rome and to have a culinary sampling of more dangerously tasty things.

We drove through the city passing many of the sites we've seen over the last two weeks, and some other places we visited last time we were here, such as the EUR. About an hour outside Rome we arrived in the town of Ariccia. Here we had a late lunch of porchetta paninis - Ariccia is famous for their porchetta, which we have to admit was really delicious. After satisfying our bellies, we walked around the town a little getting a sneak peak at the town's castle, church, main piazza, and bridge.

We got back in the car and drove a bit longer to another town of Castel Gandolfo where we saw a natural lake surrounded by old volcanoes (all the volcanic rocks that were used to build ancient Rome had to come from somewhere!). Castel Gandolfo also happens to be the summer residence of the Pope and I have to say the Pope's summer house is no cottage. It was already dark at this point, so we just drove through the town and then made our way back to Rome.

Once back in the city, we stopped for a quick refresher to hold us off before dinner. We've tried granitas before, but tonight we tried cremolata. Its sort of like a granita but its more like a treat made with whole pieces of fruit, frozen with a little bit of water, and then warmed up enough so that you can eat it like a granita. You could even say this is pretty healthy! Then we went back to Layla's and Giulio's apartment to relax, play some Wii, have a great home-cooked dinner, and get a better understanding about Italian vs American culture.

After dinner we went out for the third and final treat of the day - maritozzi. These are sweet brioche cut in half and filled with whipped cream. For such a simple concept, its really a delicious dessert. We are so happy to know people in Rome who can show us the best places in Rome to find all of these new foods!

After another long day we are back at the apartment to blog it up and go to bed!

Gelato Gusto per il Giorno:

We ate too many other snacks for gelato!

To view pictures from today, click here.