And busy it was...

I had told myself over and over I had to find a way to be busy over the coming days so not to have my mind wandering too much? Well, without even realizing how I did it, I was definitely succesful in that.

The celebrations for the World Championship's victory are slowing down after that between 600.000 and 1.000.000 people gathered at the Circus Maximus to give the team a welcome back in an almsot ancient roman style (pictures at the bottom, To be noted that the "frecce Tricolori", the acrobatic squadron of the Italian Air Force, invented a new manouver to create in teh sky a heart for them, as you can see in teh picture), if you overlook the fact that the king of the enemies has not been captured to be paraded in the street and publicly executed afterwards. Actually, it wouldn't had been a bad idea, all in all, considering how the french people, 2.000 years after, still can't absorb the fact the romans conquered and ruled them for centuries, as shown by the popularity of Asterix.

More seriously, the defeat against Italy has started a wave of recriminations and insults (again) which might even become a formal diplomatic row (in the cartoon, fron an italian newspaper, the Italian President of the Repubbli cheadbutts the french president), but differently than with the germans (who we'd like to be respected by, more or less secretely), we italians just love to argue with the french and making them mad, which always happen when they send "critiques" to us and we just made fun of them, their grandeur, their language, whatever they are saying in that particular moment and keep doing whatever they are criticizing about.

Today the mom of their former captain, red carded in the final game, just came out with a wish that our player (that his lovely son headbutted on the chest just because our player is 20 cms taller, otherwise would had been probably plain in the face) was neutered and his testicles served to her on a plate. Justfitting, considering 30.000.000 Italians were singing about her and doubting about her virtue in the night of celebrations.

Anyway, enough about that (even because my french friends might get upset, and I do not want that to be... they have already enough grief about having lost the world cup after all...). Now, being busy. All of a sudden, while yesterday I went to the swimming pool again (and today my shoulders and arms aren't SO bad, so much that I'm going again), I realized that tomorrow I've Volley in the night at that famous "over the roof" court, friday is VCN happy hour time, saturday will be the first VCN "barbecue on the beach" and sunday basketball, either at the sky-court or near Saint Paul outside the Walls cathedral. Sounds busy enough, doesn't it?

In the meanwhile, besides work obviously, most of my time has been absorbed by a nice little game called "Crown of Glory", a napoleonic strategical/tactical wargame over the computer that, even if much less complex than the games I usually find myself irremediably drawn to, yet is enjoyable and flexible enough to be hypnotic and so, I found myself playing at odd hours just wishing my heavy cavalry charge wouldn't had been crushed against an austrian square formation while the russian troops close from the north and my Spanish allies are late to join... Seriously, cool game, hadn't been so into a game since the times of Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron and, even if nothing can compare with the ancient SSI' "Battles of Napoleon" that (on a commodore 64, because the PC version was a let down) is still, for me, the best game ever (with the best editor too), yet, it promises to be a good filler for the coming days.

And now, celebrations' pictures (click to enlarge)!