Lena's First Football Match

Happy New Year, everyone! We kicked off 2008 by attending the Sheik Mohammed Bin Rashid Football Tournament last night with a big group of friends. We were there to support Amsterdam's own Ajax (pronounced "eye-axe" for those of you automatically thinking about cleansers) against Inter Milan.

As many of you know, sports isn't exactly my forte, which is why I've only ever been to two Cubs games in my life. So in my head, a professional sports event involves Chicago-style hotdogs, having beer spilled on you by complete strangers and ice cream. Turns out this isn't normal, at least if you're talking about a sporting event in the Middle East. We all sipped from juice boxes (orange or mango, including something called "identical artificial additive") while nibbling on sunflower seeds. The braver fans selected hamburgers from sea foam green styrofoam containers or individually wrapped shwarma. For a zillion reasons, we chose not to be brave.

Oh, another difference. Halftime. No midriff-bearing cheerleaders or fuzzy-headed mascots throwing promotional items at the crowd. Instead, we were treated to a drum group leading a procession of people on stilts. Which makes sense to me. Somehow.

In any case, we had a great time. I picked up a few new Dutch phrases, most notably "Zet hem op!"--which sounds suspiciously like "Set 'em up!" but apparently means "Go get 'em!" But the boys of Ajax weren't impressed and they lost to the Italians. Maybe I should have shouted louder...