Futball!

Allora, our first Sunday in Italy was a busy one. First, we wake up around 8 am to strange noises coming from outside, and when we look out our balcony, this is what we see:

All these tents are where a busy 2 way street and giant piazza used to be. But apparently, on Sundays the entire city transforms into what they call "market" where all kinds of businesses and people come out onto the street to sell what they have. Some things are old antiques, some clothes, some food, some flowers, anything you could possibly imagine someone selling can be found somewhere in these crowded blocks.

Then, after we experienced our first Roman market (we saw some tiny ones in our travels-nothing compared to this) we went to play in a soccer (FUTBALL!!!) tournament hosted by the group Italiaidea, who teach us our Italian course here in Rome. Italiaidea teaches Italian to all kinds of students here in Rome, so they put together this tournament with a bunch of colleges from the US including: RISD, Washington, Dartmouth, Cornell, some Catholic school, and us, Ohio State (we brought 3 teams).

My futball team, the Croissants!!! The guys: (from left) Mo, and Kaveh, the girls: (from left) me, Amy, and Maiko. This is our intimidating look.

Another one of our Futball teams: (from left) Alex, Steve, Dan, Adam, Mary, Jeremy, and Lindsey. Their team name was Rage Against the Machine

There were 10 teams total in our tourney (3 OSU), and so when they pulled names out of a bag to match us up, it so happened that we had to play each other. So, for the first round we played the OSU "A" team: The Seven Deadly Sins

Brandi was my main photographer for the day, because she wasn't playing. Here, she takes a study break for some architecture theory...Italy is not all fun and games...

Our first match up: The Croissants vs. The Seven Deadly Sins

AND WE WON!

After winning, we were matched up again, against Washington. They happened to have a 45 minute break between their first match and this one. We had about 5 minutes. Basically, we were tired and lost. Bummer.

However, because we one a game we moved onto the semi-finals (more names drawn out of a bag) and played against the Catholic team

It was brutal, we had some injuries

But then, out of nowhere, from playing defense, I somehow had the ball, and a clear shot, and I scored! (not the winning goal, but a good one nonetheless)

And so, the Croissants take 3rd place

And all the buckeyes were happy.

After a long exhausting day, we headed back to our apartment, all nine of us, and we were doing laundry, cooking, taking showers, drying hair, running the dishwasher, watching TV...

...and our electricity went out. So, we sat around in mine and Lindsey's room and told scary stories with this flashlight.

The street at nighttime, giving us a sliver of light into our room. Notice how different it looks after market. Eventually a few phone calls and translators later, we got our lights back on. Va Bene.