Italian Soccer

The big deal here in Italy these days is soccer. The world cup is happening and Italy just squeaked into the finals. They played France last Tuesday night and won 2-0. Although the game wasn't very good. Winning was critical, however, as the loser of the game was to be eliminated from the tournament. The same evening Holland beat Romania which was also critical. Somehow the elimination process worked such that, because Holland had won against France and Italy previously, if they'd lost to Romania then both Italy and France would have been eliminated. In fact, the locals were worried that Holland would lose the game on purpose just to do in France and Italy.

We were on the way back from Venice on the bus that evening and pulled into a truck stop to eat dinner and watch the game. Along with every other trucker on the highway it looked like. The truck stop was jammed with parked rigs. Tonight Italy plays Spain and we've been told that working in studio late is simply not allowed...

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