08 February 2011

Super Bowl Sunday...Scratch that...Super Bowl Early Monday Morning

The Super Bowl is perhaps the most amazing spectacle of American pride. Just look at Christina Aguilera -- she flubs the lines to the National Anthem, and now she's being vilified. This is why we were particularly interested to see what the Super Bowl would be like to experience in a foreign country.

We settled into Sportsters, our new favorite sports bar, for the evening. The moment we crossed the threshold, we felt like we stepped into little-America. There were about 50 TVs around the room, not counting the tiny televisions actually IN the table. Once looking over the menu briefly, we know we would be getting the appetizer platter to share. With the potato skins, curly fries, and onion rings, it felt a little bit more like home.

Oh, and did I mention that with the time difference that the game didn't start until 11:30? That was a strange element. At home, it's a big affair. The entire day is dedicated to the game. Here, however, we didn't stand for the National Anthem until 11:15. We ended up heading home at 2am, and that was when the 4th quarter was just starting. Talk about a long night!

I was pleasantly surprised by how many Scottish people were there. We were expecting to be in a sea of Americans that were abroad, but it was actually fairly split. Also, a lot of people were wearing jerseys for their favorite team. At home, everyone basically has to pick a side. If I had walked into a bar at home wearing a Bears jersey, I would have been mocked endlessly. Here, people were just wearing whatever they had. Everyone seemed happy to just be able to watch the game, and they could really care less about declaring allegiances.

One big disappointment of watching the Super Bowl over here is that there are no fun commercials. All we got were the lame UK commercials that we've been watching for months anyways. Yes, I know that a lot of people said that the commercials weren't that good anyways, but isn't part of the experience the anticipation of a potentially good commercial? Here, we had none of that.

I'll end this post with a funny story from the night.

At one point, a group of middle aged Scottish men chatted up. We had started talking because one was wearing a Jets jersey, and it turned out that they were all die hard American football fans. Later in the evening, another man approached us and said, "I hear there's a Bears fan at the table." When I confirmed, he continued, "You need to come with me, darling." Now, I ordinarily don't follow drunk men in bars, so I declined. The rest of the conversation went something like this...

Drunk Man: "But you need to come with me. There are a couple of Packers fans that we need to bother."

Me: "Oh, well...but see, my inbred dislike of the Packers is being eclipsed by my hatred of Ben Roethlisberger, so I'm rooting for the Packers tonight."

Without missing a beat, he replies, "OK, so the man's a rapist. But if he can beat the Packers, I'll forgive him for that."

As I told Kari, I was really torn on who to root for. I don't like the Packers, but I couldn't, in all good consciousness, root for a team that that man was on. So, sorry drunk Scottish man. I was rooting for morality this Super Bowl. Although, I did love that they heard about that all the way over here.

1 comment:

  1. I'm really sad you missed awesome commercials. That is a legitimate reason to be upset.

    On another note, I support your dislike of Roethlisberger. Fully support.

    ReplyDelete