Fiorentina vs AJAX Soccer Game!

I went to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure today with my Art Market class. It was extremely interesting. We saw marble mosaics which were incredible. The masters would cut the marble into small pieces and then use animal glue to create a beautiful piece of art. I found it so cool how they would first (or another master would first) make a painting and then create a marble mosaic from the painting. Often times I found the mosaic to be so much more detailed than the painting. They would manipulate the colors in the marble and use the changes in color in the painting. We then got a private tour of the workshop and were able to see the Baptistery doors which were being restored. I was asking one of the workers a question about how they cut the marble and then he just offered to show us. It was really cool that they use wire and powder to cut the marble.
After the museum visit I went back to my place for lunch and then was running late so took the bus to school. On the bus I ran into Leora, Ilana and Alana. Since it was a Thursday and half the class is taking Italian pass/fail there were hardly any people there. After class I headed home and in the piazza in front of our house I could hear a loud crowd of roudy men. As I got closer I could see that everyone was really drunk (even though it was only 3:30pm) and were all dressed up in soccer paraphernalia. It started to get me really excited for the soccer game. I then went back to my apartment relaxed and had dinner before heading downstairs to meet Alana, Leora and Laura for the soccer game.
We walked to San Marco to meet the rest of the NYU group and catch a bus to the game. It was so intense. They have separate buses for the AJAX (Amsterdam) and Fiorentina fans. A few AJAX fans buses passed us and the fans were going crazy. They were jumping up and down and making the bus rock back and forth, chanting the team songs really loudly and one bus even showered us with beer. I was getting a little scared that if the pre-game was like this - the real game would be crazy intense. But thankfully once we got there I saw that the Ajax fans were separate by like a 40 foot metal fence and a plastic casing. I can just imagine what had to happen at a different game in order to require such crazy separation between the fans. Yvette, a girl from NYU had painted her face with the Fiorentina logo and I asked her to also paint one on mine. I have never really seen a soccer game before but it was really exciting.
We had seats right up against the floor so could see the players really well. They were all ridiculously in shape. I thought that Fiorentina was the better team. They constantly had the ball near the Ajax goal but unfortunately every chance they had at scoring a goal they missed it by less than a foot. There was one point where they actually scored a goal but unfortunately they were offsides so it didnt count. In the second half AJAX scored a goal and after that Fiorentina went downhill. I think that they psyched themselves out and then just kept on turning over the ball. Even though Fiorentina lost I still had an amazing time. Leora and I left with like 15 seconds left so we could make the first bus and get home at a reasonable time. So we ran to a bus stop and got on the first bus. I think we got home around 30 min before the rest of the NYU group but even so it was nice to just get out of there and get back early. I then came back, filled out an application for a summer internship and then went to bed.
until next time!
-arrivederci