Wednesday, July 2, 2014

no belgian waffles for breakfast

Well, the U.S. is out of the World Cup, and there are 8 teams left (if I'm understanding this right), and I have paid more attention to soccer (a/k/a "football") in the past couple weeks than I ever have before, and there are a few reasons for that.  The U.S. had a better team than usual, for one thing.  I have a new friend, Kevin, a former high-school soccer coach, explaining some of it all to me and inspiring some interest.  And Todd, my old friend, is down there in Brazil seeing some matches and taking in the atmosphere, and he sends me an occasional email.

The cool thing about the World Cup is that it brings some common ground to the whole earth -- more so everywhere else than in the U.S., but it's growing here too -- although hopefully not ever inspiring the same extreme passion that has other country's fans sometimes beheading referees or murdering players that lose a crucial match.

While we here were watching the game yesterday where the U.S. lost to Belgium, my friend Elke was simultaneously watching in Germany and my friends Heike and Joerg were watching in the Netherlands, seven or eight time zones away, and it's just kinda cool that we were all sharing the experience.  Their country's teams are still among the final eight, as is Argentina, where my friend Norbie is from originally, so I'm rooting for one of those three countries to win the Cup.  Cheers!  The whole world is watching!

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