Football

So I got my real induction into British culture on Tuesday night - my first football (otherwise known as soccer in the US) match. I was offered a ticket to the Arsenal vs. Porto FC match in Champions League group play. (Explanation: Porto FC is a Portuguese team, and this match was being played as part of the tournament that comprises the best teams from the individual .) Arsenal plays at shiny new Emirates Stadium in Northeast London, and the place is truly massive, say, NFL stadium huge. 60,000 showed up to watch Arsenal dispatch the Portuguese league champions by a score of 4-0. And it was great.

We had seats that were way, way up near the top of the stadium. At any American sports venue, you'll need binoculars to even see what's happening. But due to the shape of a soccer field (about as long as an NFL field including the end zones, but much wider - NFL: 120x53yds, Emirates: 114x74yds), you can see everything, from anywhere.

What really shocked me was the atmosphere as the game went on. Soccer is played over two continuous 45-minute halves, with discretionary time added by the referees at the end of each one. The clock, once started, does not stop at all until it runs out, which is completely absent from American sports. Aside from the occasional rousing chant or insulting (and usually a bit salty) song aimed at the other team, and cheering in reaction to play on the field, the place is silent. I go to sports in the US and carry on conversations and hear the call of beer men walking the aisles, and so on. There's that dull roar of conversation. None of that here - everyone, and I do mean everyone, is totally dialed in to the action on the field. (No beer men either - I didn't even see people drinking in the stands, but I think that might be because it simply isn't allowed. British hooligans!) The tension was palpable, despite the dominating play by the home team. (It may have also been a byproduct of the very embarrassing home loss dealt to Arsenal last Saturday.)

Oh, and everything you hear about English soccer fans having sailors' vocabularies and not being afraid to use them is completely true.

I didn't sing a whole lot during the match - my clearly American accent stuck out like a sore thumb. It would have sounded wrong to me.

Watching the flow of a well-played soccer match is nothing short of exhilirating. Back and forth, closer and closer, until that gorgeously placed cross into the box gets the diving header and is sent straight past the opposing keeper and into the net. The whole place then erupts. They sing, they cheer, they have merriment. They live and die by their team. It's not unlike being a die-hard for an American sports team, but the act of being a fan in Europe has a slightly different job description.

All in all, loads of fun. Go Arsenal!

Weekend 1

So, life in London has settled down some after a week of orientation and generally getting my bearings down. It's really a wonderful city, but that flushing noise you hear off in the distance is the sound of my bank account draining - ouch. The people are generally nice, if hardened city-types: iPod rocking, walking quickly, make no eye contact, and so on. I'm having trouble with the not-exactly-subtle fact that Brits drive on the wrong side of the road-- not because I have to drive, but because I keep looking the wrong way before crossing the street.

(I never want to drive in London. Ever. The whole of the city becomes quite literally one gargantuan parking lot and street-level transport becomes a guaranteed impossibility. It's difficult to describe the complete and total mob scene this city becomes during rush hours. Rail advocates, sing your hearts out. Bus riders, I feel your pain, and then some. But I digress.)

Over the past year or so, I've grown fond of professional socc-- football. Now that I'm in a country that seems to take it seriously, I can fully indulge my fledgling passion for the sport. I've been offered tickets by some wonderful family friends to an Arsenal FC match, this coming Tuesday. I'll have pictures and a post about the (so I'm told) singularly unique experience of attending an English sporting event. I'm sure that I'm going to get a crash course in culture not soon forgotten.

--Adam

France Photos

Facebook is perhaps the best photo-sharing site out there. It's great how you can share photos both publicly and privately at the same time.

Part 1:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2005907&l=4b67a&id=1358370162
Part 2:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2005942&l=6a055&id=1358370162

Enjoy!

Busy...

Life is busy. Registration is tomorrow, I'm getting things sorted out at the University, and I've mastered the commute (almost an hour on the Underground - known locally as the tube, pronounced chewb) across town. I'll have my schedule tomorrow, so I know which parts of my week will be hell on earth.

I got my City ID - I look like crap, but I was told to expect that.

I'll write more about France probably over the weekend.

France, Days 0-1 - Arriving in France & Nice

Day 0: Welcome to travel purgatory, also known as Stansted airport.

They do airports differently in Europe, apparently: instead of placing giant video screens with every flight and every gate assignment of the next few hours right after security, you are corralled into a shopping-mall type space where everyone is forced to wait until they post gate assignments, only about 45 minutes before the departure time. The US airports are large open gate concourses with people milling about at or around their gate hours early, and this allows plenty of time to roam around while always knowing where you'll need to return to. Stansted forces passengers to cluster near small video screens for hours until revealing the precious number of the gate where passengers get to wait for another hour with positively nothing to do (satellite gate halls in this case are completely devoid of activity - there is simply no need for another newsstand).

So, after hours of listening to the same annoying "watch your bags" announcement (really, I get it - I don't need to be told 147 times) preceded by a highly irritating your-attention-please tone, I got on my easyJet flight to Nice's Cote d'Azur airport.

And stepping off the plane to salty Mediterranean sea air and bright sunshine, I was very happy.

Nice is beautiful, really. 50 miles or so east of the Italian border on the southern coast of France, this town has long been known in company with its absurdly rich eastern neighbor Monaco (actually an independent state along the lines of the relationship the Vatican City has with Italy), and its absurdly crowded and no less rich western neighbor, Cannes. And walking out to the miles-long beach at the end of town shows why.

Crystal-blue water surrounded by luxury hotels and casinos surrounded by the foothills of the French Alps surrounded by the French Alps themselves. It truly is something to see. But it was nothing compared to the magical Veille Ville, or Old City of Nice.

It was late afternoon by then, so I went to my hostel (clean, well-run, great location 10 minutes from everything and 50 yards off the main drag of the city), went out to find some food, and went to sleep.

Day 1: Exploring Nice

The Old City is the most amazing place. A tangle of streets on the southern end of town, I discovered my new favorite street on the entire planet, the Rue Pairoliere. Narrow, cobblestoned, crowded, and filled with food shops sending the most fantastic aromas out onto the streets, this was positively thrilling. People everywhere were milling about, doing the double-cheek-kiss French greeting all over the place, sipping espresso (which I've grown quite fond of). I sat down in a lovely little cafe and ordered the best cappuccino I've ever had, and for 2.30 EUR, cheap too.

That afternoon, I decided to take some beach time. Good call. It was still high summer, with temperatures ranging well into the 80's. A word of caution for potential beachgoers, though: the beaches of the French Riviera are almost exclusively surfaced by large pebbles, some the side of a tennis ball or a cell phone. Those that are sand either require a paid admission (sometimes worth it, but this can be rather pricey) or seeking out, as these beaches are out of town (which is exactly what I did the next day...).

I met a few people in Nice. A British girl on the beach (I forgot entirely to give her my email address and kicked myself for it for the rest of the trip) my age, a 28-year old Canadian from Toronto (who worked in the same office that my mother worked in many, many years ago - IBM in Somers) on a 5 week backpacking trip to simply get away from it all after years without a real vacation, and two blokes from Australia, on the very end of a three-week journey, who I spent a fun night at the bar with. (Oh right, you can do that under the age of 21 here. And pretty much everywhere else in the world.)

Nice is one of the most wonderful places on the planet. I managed to survive off of 4- and 5-Euro street sandwiches (so good) and Orangina, with the occasional coffee-related boisson thrown in. I based out of Nice for three nights, but took a day trip to Antibes on the 3rd day. Stay tuned...

Up next, day 2: Antibes.

Pictures

New Blog

About my travels in the Europe, will start with the recent trip to France. Didn't use wordpress cause it'll be too complicated for this application. Bon chance!