Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Mondiale


One of the beautiful bits about being back here in the Mid-East is the close proximity to Europe and consequently the current exposure to the Mondiale, as it is termed here, or The World Cup in football - er, non-American football, that is.

I'm not a fan and I don't even follow the games. I like the sport if it's live and yeah, I know Switzerland and France tied tonight and that Brazil and Croatia are currently on the field together but otherwise? I probably won't tune in again until the final match.

Walking home from the playground this evening, however, I counted five cafes within a 2-block radius all sporting large screens for game viewing. Each venue was full of people sitting at the outdoor tables and sipping beer, coffee or soda while eyeballing the game.

I love that. Back in San Fran I had to seek out the Irish pubs or French cafes to watch games publicly. Here I can pop downstairs and grab a seat at my local cafe and watch the game if I so choose. I won't but having the option brightens my day, nonetheless...

3 comments:

Ari said...

Not being a sports fan to begin with and even less of a fan of football having little knowledge of the sport I headed out to Mike's Place in Tel Aviv with some friends to watch the Brazil Croatia match. Oddly enough my friend's, none of us frequent Mike's Place, were mainly talking about that the place was bombed some time ago and that they were nervous about heading there. I realized that, when confronted with such a horrible reality it can really be horrible to contemplate. My way of dealing with this has been simply not to think about such things. I was not too pleased to recognize this loss of humanity in my self, though on the other hand I thoroughly enjoyed watching thte game. As did my friends.

Liza said...

I'm in the Northeastern US right now, and they were showing a World Cup match at the diner where I had lunch today. I was really surprised!

Stefanella said...

That is just so amazing to me: to be amazed over airing the W. Cup publicly. It's such a HUGE event! (depending upon where you are)...off to look for sundresses..slf