Advertisement
I officially attempted to assimilate into American culture today... I went to a baseball game. The Philadelphia phillies at the citizen bank park taking on the Chicago cubs. What a Phillie is I can't tell you, it is rather unimaginative but it is one of the oldest franchises in baseball and most importantly hasn't moved around with the frequency of most other American teams. It's history I appreciated, and it instantly made me like them that little bit more. The stadium seats over 40,000 fans, and it was quite a surreal experience. My 30 dollar ticket got me a seat in the nose bleed section, with no protection against the cold winds of an April evening. The first 5 innings passed with little aplomb mostly strikeouts and quick innings despite this it did pique my interest. The massive screen constantly flicked to show people in the crowd, who upon seeing their selves on the screen, acted as if they had won the lottery, jumping, screaming in complete pandemonium.
Someone next to me was enjoying a pulled pork sandwich, which smelt like someone's intestines had been left In the sun for 8 hours, I resisted the urge to throw up, and took it as part of the ballpark experience.
Finally the game got a bit more interesting, with the phillies hitting a home run, the stadium went mad, with music, flashing lights, and a led liberty bell ringing. Like everything in America nothing is done half-hearted everything is over the top, but it did help the excitement, because realistically baseball isn't the most exhilarating sport. But I left the stadium with a new appreciation of the sport, despite the phillies losing. I plan to go again next week only this time, with my brand new phillies jersey. I have a new team.
The following day we made our way north to upstate New Jersey and the home of the new York red bulls. The band new stadium built in what seemed to be the middle of an industrial state, reminded me a little of old Trafford. It was a 25,000 capacity stadium so a step down from the phillies home ground and to add insult to injury, it was half empty. But I have missed football, and I thought it would be interesting to see the yanks give it a go. We were in row 2 right on the goal line, so amazing seats which is less surprising in light of the empty stadium. But it was good to see Thierry Henry so close, and even better to see him score in the goal I was behind. It was just disappointing that he went off injured so early into the game. However this factor enabled conversation to seemly flow from the mouths of ignorant americans. I appeared to be the fountain of knowledge when it came to "their" team. Which included questions such as "Thierry Henry is Spanish right?" and "he's 40 right?" Also apparent was the lack of understanding about what the offside rule is... If I had to describe MLS in one word, it would have to be insipid. It was slower than what I am used to seeing, capitalised by the seemingly failure to even attempt to shoot towards the funny white posts. So much dithering it was unreal, when Thierry Henry left the field of play, the change in tempo was glaringly obvious, MLS seems to rely heavily on their marque players.
At half time I went and got brown bear and myself a beer, as is the tradition. Only to find out it was 24 dollars for the two... Financially raped. And I had thought the 7 dollar beers in Phillie had been daylight robbery. So that is something the usa have in common with the uk, at sporting venues, everything is overpriced and crap.
The new York red bulls actually play in north Jersey, and on the way to the game we stopped off in new Brunswick, to visit my second man vs food location. The R U Hungry grease trucks at the rutgers campus, the home of the fat sandwich. Their I consumed a fat darrell; a sandwich that contains, chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, fries all
Covered in marinara sauce. It was starch heaven. America is going to kill me one bite at a time.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0693s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Gary R
non-member comment
Sounds like some good experiences and always good to see you educating others especially when its the ignorance of americans haha. Can't really comment on the whole sporting thing as we all know it' not really my kinda thing...especially american sport lol. the food experiences sound as good and make me as jealous as the sights lol x