It's A Mad Mad Street

St. Clair Avenue is full of people and cars right now. I've been hearing cars honking since getting home this evening at 6:30 pm. That's about an hour after Italy won the World Cup Soccer. The Boy and his friend couldn't resist the party. They went down to investigate.

They walked over to Dufferin and turned back. That's because that's as far as they could get. St. Clair was shut down from Bathurst to Lansdowne. That's a huge block of shut down. Still, some cars managed to get through. The street was packed - cars just idling and honking in the middle of the street going nowhere, people all walking towards Dufferin. There, everyone just stood around, as if waiting for something to happen. No one can see anything, no one can move. If you weren't already on St. Clair between Dufferin and Lansdowne when Italy won, you have no hope of getting on that strip of the street after the win.

On the way home from up north, there was a separate lane for cars carrying Italian flags on the highway. I surmise these are out-of-town Italians, rushing into Toronto once Italy's win was announced.

On my street, cars are parked on both sides. Many houses have huge flag banners up, mostly of Italy. Outside my door, I hear cars beeping up and down the street, people too head down to St. Clair, carrying Italian flags. Whole families of them, to do their shift as revellers while some make their way back, wearing Italy's blue soccer jersey. Little kids are running around waving flags and screaming, Vive Italia!

There's bean a constant drum beat coming from one of the houses, men and women carrying on loud conversations across the street at each other, in Italian.

And now, I hear sirens. Uh oh. Or maybe it's good that police is there to keep order.

I am so drained by my weekend I can't make my way down to St. Clair. I think it's because I'm sunburned and brain damaged.