We didn’t need to sleep in after a decent early night so we hit the road for the big day ahead.
It must be said that neither of us were upset at the prospect of leaving Croatia. This was the only place in the whole of Europe where we really felt this way at all, and we certainly felt it here. It seems unfair to the (still majority perhaps) members of the population who are genuinely friendly people, but Mark and I experienced at best idle ignorance of us from any member of the Croatian public that we didn’t pay money to, with only a small handful of exceptions. And this includes a decent smattering of people, and no end of friendly greetings from us.
I wasn’t aware of a Croatian (or Yugoslavian as it seems to be) stereotype to this effect before I went away, but am certainly able to contribute my experience of the same now.
Our drive took us through a small but pleasant section of Slovenia. Snooze and you’ll miss it – it was all of 20mins long. Somewhere in Italy was our intended destination, perhaps around Turin, but we had no really solid ideas.
Around the right time of day we entered Milan, wanting to make the Piazza del Du Duomo for the Australia Italy game. (We’d been tipped off by a friendly local at a roadhouse who’d heard us give the language a good solid yet pathetic attempt. Once again glad to be somewhere not Croatian.)
In a bit of a hurry we parked the car in a paid car park area that ended up being over 3km from the piazza, so we really had to hustle to make it in time.
For the first half Mark and I stood on our own near the back side third of the people gathered. Early on we were approached by a girl who told us she was a journalist and would like to ask us questions. We gladly agreed but were a little stumped by her first one: “Why are you here?” Simply enough we answered that we were watching the game, and where better to do it than Italy if not in the stadium or back home. Fair enough it seemed, until her next question: “And you don’t feel unsafe?” This made us take another look at our surroundings. Suddenly the couple of blokes in front of us whose looks we interpreted as “check out these palukas” became the testy sussing out for what might conspire after the game.
At half time we sought out the main Aussie contingent that we saw from a distance. This was more fun now we had someone to cheer with. A couple of them were a little too toasted for comfort given the circumstances, which wouldn’t have been as much of a problem except the Italians didn’t know what to make of “We’re happy little Vegemites” and the Skippy theme song, and so assumed they were insults to them. Most of the Aussies were too scared to chant or sing though, and again the locals who were friendly came and asked us why we were there. We said we’d encountered pretty rough crowds in Croatia and that the police came to our aid, but this bloke responded with “Oh no, the police don’t attend this sort of thing here.”
The game is now infamous in Australian soccer history. This isn’t the forum to speculate as to what the outcome should have been, but I will say that it was a terrible way to lose. And the walk to the car was quite an ordeal with all the Italian celebration going on right down the main road we walked along. But we stood up straight, jerseys proud and flags flapping on our backs, and sucked up the jeers and leers of the supporters of a country who play to act.
On the road then, to Turin. We had actually collected the addresses of a couple of hostels in the area, but when we came to look for them we came to find we’d lost them. Great so we drive around randomly and randomly come across a few hotels. Last minute rooms are not cheap here; the best we find is a dodgy old room for 60 Euro.
The room taken care of we head out for a feed. I wasn’t going to let our only night in Italy pass without a great meal, and we happen to find one just around the corner.
That night was just tops, we had an absolutely fantastic meal, with beer and wine to suit each course perfectly, sitting at the back of a restaurant with a TV in the corner where we watched Switzerland play Ukraine, chatting occasionally with the staff, and having a great time overall.
It must be said that neither of us were upset at the prospect of leaving Croatia. This was the only place in the whole of Europe where we really felt this way at all, and we certainly felt it here. It seems unfair to the (still majority perhaps) members of the population who are genuinely friendly people, but Mark and I experienced at best idle ignorance of us from any member of the Croatian public that we didn’t pay money to, with only a small handful of exceptions. And this includes a decent smattering of people, and no end of friendly greetings from us.
I wasn’t aware of a Croatian (or Yugoslavian as it seems to be) stereotype to this effect before I went away, but am certainly able to contribute my experience of the same now.
Our drive took us through a small but pleasant section of Slovenia. Snooze and you’ll miss it – it was all of 20mins long. Somewhere in Italy was our intended destination, perhaps around Turin, but we had no really solid ideas.
Around the right time of day we entered Milan, wanting to make the Piazza del Du Duomo for the Australia Italy game. (We’d been tipped off by a friendly local at a roadhouse who’d heard us give the language a good solid yet pathetic attempt. Once again glad to be somewhere not Croatian.)
In a bit of a hurry we parked the car in a paid car park area that ended up being over 3km from the piazza, so we really had to hustle to make it in time.
For the first half Mark and I stood on our own near the back side third of the people gathered. Early on we were approached by a girl who told us she was a journalist and would like to ask us questions. We gladly agreed but were a little stumped by her first one: “Why are you here?” Simply enough we answered that we were watching the game, and where better to do it than Italy if not in the stadium or back home. Fair enough it seemed, until her next question: “And you don’t feel unsafe?” This made us take another look at our surroundings. Suddenly the couple of blokes in front of us whose looks we interpreted as “check out these palukas” became the testy sussing out for what might conspire after the game.
At half time we sought out the main Aussie contingent that we saw from a distance. This was more fun now we had someone to cheer with. A couple of them were a little too toasted for comfort given the circumstances, which wouldn’t have been as much of a problem except the Italians didn’t know what to make of “We’re happy little Vegemites” and the Skippy theme song, and so assumed they were insults to them. Most of the Aussies were too scared to chant or sing though, and again the locals who were friendly came and asked us why we were there. We said we’d encountered pretty rough crowds in Croatia and that the police came to our aid, but this bloke responded with “Oh no, the police don’t attend this sort of thing here.”
The game is now infamous in Australian soccer history. This isn’t the forum to speculate as to what the outcome should have been, but I will say that it was a terrible way to lose. And the walk to the car was quite an ordeal with all the Italian celebration going on right down the main road we walked along. But we stood up straight, jerseys proud and flags flapping on our backs, and sucked up the jeers and leers of the supporters of a country who play to act.On the road then, to Turin. We had actually collected the addresses of a couple of hostels in the area, but when we came to look for them we came to find we’d lost them. Great so we drive around randomly and randomly come across a few hotels. Last minute rooms are not cheap here; the best we find is a dodgy old room for 60 Euro.
The room taken care of we head out for a feed. I wasn’t going to let our only night in Italy pass without a great meal, and we happen to find one just around the corner.
That night was just tops, we had an absolutely fantastic meal, with beer and wine to suit each course perfectly, sitting at the back of a restaurant with a TV in the corner where we watched Switzerland play Ukraine, chatting occasionally with the staff, and having a great time overall.
posted by Tim at 9:52 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home