My World Cup Runneth Over

You can’t google “dead cat” without finding someone blogging about it; and they’lll certainly have much more insightful things to say about the games, the players, the coaches, and the whole socio-political extravaganza that is the FIFA World Cup than me.

Still, I’m not oblivious to the tournament; I’ve been enjoying it in my own way and so I thought, now that the quarterfinal matchups are settled, that I’d weigh in with my own two euros.

The high point for me so far was getting up at 5:15AM a few Sundays ago, eating a marijuana cookie and getting to the George and Dragon Pub by 6:00 to watch the Dutch play Serbia and Montenegro. I loved riding through the empty streets to find myself in a packed bar having Stella Artois for breakfast. Later that day, I watched the Mexico-Iran at a Mexican restaurant while drinking Dos Eques and eating chips. A few days hence, I drank Foster’s lager at lunchtime while Brazil beat Australia. During the US-Italy game I ate American cheese and drank Italian wine. A couple days ago, I set out for my usual Sunday morning bike ride, but soon found myself in a bar, cheering England on with a pint of Guinness in hand. Several hours afterwards, I tried unsuccessfully to revive Holland’s hopes against Portugal by drinking Heineken during the second half.

Is a trend emerging here?

Apparently, my world cup has been more of a glass and that glass has usually been filled with alcohol.

So, while I’m fairly ignorant of the history and strategy of the sport, I seemed to have picked right up on how the rest of the world enjoys “the beautiful game.”

I’m sort of relieved Holland lost; they were the only team I really cared about and that’s mostly because I like the color orange and appreciate Dutch drug policy.

I think Germany will win the Cup; I guess that means I’ll be drinking Spaten.