longest entry ever?

My tour of over fifty people had 15 minutes to get ready for the World Cup final. My mom saved the day when I called at 1:45 USA time, and she asked why I wasn't getting ready for the game. I told her it wasn't until 9:00 my time, but she said ESPN was showing it at 8:00. We did the math, and the 6 time zones did not account for the missing hour. We were running very late.

Mel tracks down our bus driver Mario, who apparently cursed up a storm in the lobby of a five-star hotel before running off to find Matteo. Lindsay and Paul and I run to the other floors and call room after room. This gives us exactly enough time to throw on our game shirts, scribble green, white and red paint all over our faces, and grab some crackers (no time for dinner). We flew through an inappropriately wild first-class hotel, rocketed down a few flights of stairs, slid into the lobby and crash-landed right in front of the massive TV.

We just caught the start of the game. Mario and Matteo were already there, decked out in the official FIFA jersies and Italian flags tied around their necks like capes. Soon our entire tour look up the floor in front of the TV, the chaperones were at the bar, and roughly 50 Spanish Italy-supporters filled in every inch of space behind us. We sat riveted through 45 minutes of glorious World Cup soccer, cheering and screaming and groaning and cursing together, whether it be in Italian, English or Spanish.

Then half time came. Matteo jumped up and told us to go down to the dining room for dinner. We asked him if he was insane; half time was only 20 minutes long. Apparently, the tour says we have to eat dinner every night, and as Matteo put it, "If I'm going, you're coming with me." So we rocketed down the stairs and into the dinning room, where waiters in tuxedos were getting ready to serve a 3-course meal as slowly as they possibly could. We skipped the appetizer at Matteo's insistence (he kept on chasing the waiters out of the kitchen to keep them moving) downed the pasta course in 6 minutes, the fish course in 8, threw a toast to Mario because it was his last day, and ran out on dessert, leaving place settings askew and chairs strewn all over the room.

At some point in the second half the TV went black. We stared in disbelief before a few seconds before Matteo busted out his map to look for the closest bar. Fortunatley, the concierge ran over and started wiggling wires and before we could even stand up we had the game back. She was the hero of that night. The second half was the same kind of delicious agony, tied at 1-1 for another 45 minutes.

Overtime. Another twenty minutes to score, but Italy was locked into its gritty defense. Every European in the room was chain-smoking, and the air was so thick you could hardly see the screen. Finally, after an hour of waiting and waiting, something amazing happened. Zidane lost his temper, and earned himself the red ticket out of the game. Even though the room exploded into cheers and hugs, the tension continued to mount. Overtime ran out, and we faced the kick-off.

This was bad. Italy is the worst striking team that has ever played in a World Cup final, and France was one of the best. I was squeezing Lindsey's arm so hard it turned blue. I couldn't breathe, I could only think in blips. If Italy lost, it would be so bad. This room, this world would deflate like a dejected party balloon. We would slowly stand up and silently make our way to our rooms. in the morning, Mario would be gone, and Matteo would be absolutely miserable. An entire country would be miserable. I would be miserable. They had to win, they just had to. But I couldn't see how.

As the teams sent off their kicks, one right after the other, time slowed and almost stopped. The entire process could not have taken five minutes, but it felt like forever. The pressure was so intense I thought I would crumple or explode. People sucked on their cigarettes like their lives depended on it, some people were even chewing on the furniture from the agony. France missed one. All Italy had to do was overcome every statistic and score five perfect goals, and glory would be ours.

Italy's last kicker sent off the last kick. And time exploded. I don't remember actually seeing the ball hit the back of the net, I felt it happen, I knew deep inside of me that it had hapened, we had won. I don't remember leaping up and hugging every human being I could get hold of, and running in a mad dash into the street. It was all bright, blinding light and blind noise and pure joy for one flashing second. Finally, after so long, victory. After so, so long, I had won.

We spent a couple of hours in the street, taking up a few lanes of traffic. We waved our flags and screamed like maniacs. Sean found his bongo drums, and we chanted and danced like crazed savages. People poured of hotels and apartments and filled the rest of the road. Mopeds with blaring horns and flags flying off the drivers cut through the crowd. The Police came and yelled at us, and after a serious discussion with the officer, Matteo ran through our group with his cell phone in one hand, his cigarette in the other and his flag-cape streaming behind him shouting "Do whatever you want!"

Even after we were ordered to our rooms, we weren't done celebrating. We grabbed every flag and ran to every window for three floors, waving and shouting over the street. I grabbed the phone and called up my family, first Gramma and Grampa, then Mom and Dad and Nathan. I dangled the phone over the balcony, and left it swinging over the street so everyone could hear the party. For four hours we cheered and chanted and screaming until we were completely wiped.

At 2 am, there were five of us in a two-person room, and no one wanted to go back to their assigned rooms. We left the balcony door wide open and pushed the two twin-sized beds together. We collapsed in a jumbled heap and fell asleep with hot air and chaos pouring in through the balcony doors, and out fingers and toes tingling from exhaustion and happiness.

We all woke up at the same time, all tangled up with glaring sunlight streaming into the room. We were stiff and still very tired, but we lay there for a few minutes letting all of the joy seep back into our bodies. Laughing because we had won and the world was a beautiful place, we started another day.