GOOOAAALLLLLL — Often Away

Jul 4

Jul 4 GOOOAAALLLLLL

Our weekend spent in Surat was filled with swimming and soccer (football, whatever). We went to a semi-pro game Saturday night and of course we were the only farang (foreigners). After some jokes were cracked about us being the only white people there, we were free to enjoy the Surat Thani Roosters play a good game of footy.

(Cheering section...very exclusive.)

(Ow! My arm! ... Someone get the stretcher!)

I'm not a big supporter of soccer because I find it...well, boring to say the least. Although, I am impressed with people who can play the game because I respect the stamina it takes to run that field for 90 minutes. I'm lucky if I could run the width of the field, let alone the length.

It was a beautiful day on the pitch and we cheered our orange-clad Roosters to victory...but not without an interruption! The power cut out at some point leaving us in the "dark". We waited 45 minutes for the power to kick back in and cheers were shouted every time a light bulb resurrected from the dead! Being the soccer experts we are, we thought it was light enough to keep on truckin', but clearly the Thais did not agree with our professional opinion of playing at dusk. We took this time to discuss where we would eat dinner - I swear we talk about food more than Paula Deen talked about her love for butter...you will be missed Paula.

During halftime the MC came onto the field to announce the raffle winners. Since none of us are fluent in Thai it took us a few prizes to realize what was going on. Thankfully I got my ticket out just in time to hear my numbers called out in Thai! Song - See - Ha - Ha! Guess those two Thai lessons I went to paid off, huh?! (To see more pictures of the game and our weekend, check out my name-twin's blog: The Farang Files).

While I may not follow soccer as much as I follow the NY Giants, I can appreciate the game and the love other cultures have for it. You can pretty much travel outside of America and be guaranteed that the people that live there bleed soccer. While living in Florence, I attended a Firenze game and enjoyed the enthusiasm the crowd had the entire 90 minutes. Baseball is the American past-time, while football is every other countries'...and they treat it like the World Series every time. This is the biggest game of the year! This is a huge game! No, no, this is the biggest game! It's great to go to soccer games in other countries because you can start to relate more to that culture - what they grew up with, their passions, and their values.