Stadio Olimpico Suberb Saga, part 1

We always knew Akif was the perfect gentleman, but here in Rome his rugged perserverance and survival skills have a chance to shine...

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hi

just to let you know i am now in possession of our tickets for the roma-lyon game next week.

in true italian style there is a story that goes with it. firstly, the day they were supposed to go on sale moved from monday to wednesday and i couldn't find out why. then, i went down to the tabacchi at 1600 yesterday and duly collected my number for the queuing system. i was 46 (couldn't work out how 45 others had got there before me as i was there right on time, still, never mind) so i decided to go back to work and return in an hour hoping it would be approaching my turn. of course, in the meantime the machine broke down and so they had only reached number 6 by 1700, with loads of people milling around outside wondering what's going on. so i gave up at that stage and thought i would try again later since i'd be walking past in the evening. at 2000 they had only reached number 30 with a queue of people still outside, so i had to leave it.

anyway, i went in again on my way to work this morning and managed to get the 11 tickets for our group. it wasn't possible to get 11 close by in distinti sud, so i went for distinti nord and we are across two rows, as a group of 6 and a group of 5. what cracked me up this morning was how the guy behind the counter was totally totally oblivious to the queue of about 10 people behind me (lucky no one there when i arrived) all waiting for tickets....he was absolutely content chatting to his mate whilst sporadically filling in the details of our group and printing off the tickets.

it's superb how you can get a saga out of a simple operation like buying tickets....great!!


speak soon

akif

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But then we were off to the Champions League!