between Blandford Street and Mars

You remember Andrea, right? The lovely Londoner who knocked around with us in Newcastle the first day or two? Yes, her. She was to be my salvation. I had no place to sleep that final night before my flight out. Andrea had graciously offered me her apartment for that evening, and I decided to take her up on the offer.

It didn't quite work out that way, though. Jeff was in town. You know, my Canuck buddy? He had come straight back to London after Edinburgh and had been bumping things off his "must-see" list. He'd be taking a train through the Chunnel and into France in a few days. For now, however, we were briefly reunited: Andrea, Jeff and I. And how did we celebrate? Like any red-blooded Londoner would after the sun went down: at the pub, with copious amounts of beer.  

I took the Underground from the train station into some dark, crooked, half-remembered borough of London; Gloucester Road, maybe. It's dim in my memory. The twilight was still dark blue. The canopies of the trees lining the sidewalks ('scuse me, pavement) were black silhouettes against it. My brain was in that "wow-did-I-really-just-do-all-that-and-am-I-really-doing-what-I'm-doing-right-now?" fugue. It hits me like clockwork, immediately after an adventure begins and right before it ends. We were nearing the ending, and the bittersweet taste of the moment was on the tip of my tongue. Try as I might with cider and ale, I could not dispel it.

Jeff, Andrea and I sat in some pub or other (I was done scribbling in my little red notebook) and had our last, desperate chat. I was vacillating between total exhaustion and homesickness and the desire to get back to the patch of sand I called home...and hiding out in Andrea's attic for a year and attempting to garner British citizenship. Over Jeff's half-finished plate of fish and chips, we discussed life, travel, careers, and the charming nature of Northeast England.

After a couple of hours, we said our final goodbyes to Jeff and caught a double-decker to Andrea's neighborhood. It was, by now, well after midnight. I was torn between staying at Andrea's and just going right to the airport and sleeping on the floor. I didn't want to impose myself upon her, and could not bear to see her charming flat; it would make leaving England too painful. So I begged off, and requested to be led to Heathrow. Andrea cheerfully complied, and after a whirl of tangled streets, glaring lampposts, foreigners from all nations, brightly-lit storefronts and crowds of drunken merry-makers, during which we switched buses at least twice, Andrea escorted me safely through the sliding doors of Heathrow Airport and said her goodbyes.

This was it. I was on the threshold. This building would take me home. Well, not literally, of course. But inside this building were the means to take me home: airplanes and other stuff that flew through the air at incredible speeds. That was my train of thought. My mindset was not the most lucid, as I've already pointed out.

And then came the most unpleasant night of any I had spent thus far in England: those six miserable hours I attempted to snatch some sleep in the main terminal of Heathrow. There were no couches, no chairs, no lounge, no quiet rooms, nothing. Even the benches had these bloody metal armrests between each seat. After wandering blearily about the ticket counters and closed shops for an hour, I gave up. I bent myself around the armrests as best I could, propped my head on my elbow, snugged my baggage as tightly to me as possible, and tried to catch some Z's. At this I failed, almost universally. The unfortunate S-position into which I was forced to contort my body was extremely uncomfortable. Compounding the matter were my bulky clothes, the unpleasant warmth and stuffiness of the terminal building, and the unforgiving hardness of the wooden seats. Sleep remained a lofty goal. I flip-flopped between unsatisfying catnaps and stints at the Internet consoles (which cost me more pounds than I care to remember).

It was with some base form of relief that six o'clock finally rolled around and with it, the opening of the ticket counter. I grabbed my boarding passes, negotiated security, and found my gate ("When you get a minute, your belt!" harped the security agent at the X-ray machines). Two hours later I was aboard the jetliner and ready to pass out.

There remains little to tell, dear reader. I disembarked at Ontario Airport in the good old US of A eleven hours later. Mom and Pop met me at baggage claim, practically carried me to the car, and trucked my limp carcass 50 miles through the Cajon Pass and back into the High Desert. I got home, slept for five hours, showered, dressed, sat down at the computer, and began to wonder how I was going to write about all of it.

And now, here I am. The drama's done. The tale is finished. The story's ended, two weeks shy of one year after it happened.

Whadja think?

shoot to thrill

If you want to witness miracles with any kind of regularity, don't go to a church. Go to a sports game.

(Yes, that's blasphemy. It is also true.)

The sports world is full of miracles. Maybe the fan favorite makes a game-winning three-point shot as the last buzzer sounds. Or your favorite team, the literal definition of downtrodden, participates in what some have called the greatest game in NFL history...and wins. The dying first baseman calls himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth" in his farewell address to the fans.

It's enough to make anyone a believer.

And yet, I've never experienced one of these miracles for myself. Heck, I didn't even start seriously following a major sports team until recently, and even then, soccer and football (or, as I shall refer to them henceforth in this post, football and gridiron) are my only interests. Two or three seasons of gridiron games aren't enough to witness a miracle (especially when your team is San Diego; don't get me started).

Football (soccer), however...well, it deluged me with miracles from the very first. On my last day in England, two such miracles happened within minutes of each other.

So there I was. England. June 2010. Back in Newcastle after parting with Jeff in Edinburgh. There were a couple of big games coming up, which my English host Adam, his girlfriend Elaine, their friend Jay, and yours truly made sure to watch: England vs. Slovenia and U.S.A. vs. Algeria.

I need to give you the landscape first. As I mentioned previously, Slovenia had given the U.S. a disappointing draw a few days ago, and Algeria had handed England an even more humiliating 0-0. Now matters were switched. The U.S. would be taking on Algeria and England would have to pierce Slovenia. I was dreading the U.S. game all the more now that I knew the Algerian modus operandi: forget scoring, just block the opposing team. The ploy had proven horrendously effective. How would the American boys oppose it? My Geordie friends were feeling the same unease. They had seen how wicked the Slovenians were at blocking the ball. We were all big bundles of nerves. These were the last games before the Round of 16. If either England or the U.S. lost, they would not advance. That'd be it for us. We'd be dead, finished, out of the running. Everything came down to these two games.

Unfortunately, they were being played at the same time. The U.S. would face Algeria in Pretoria, South Africa, and England would play Slovenia in Port Elizabeth. This being England, and me being outnumbered three to one, it was the England game we watched. In between observing, I anxiously watched the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen for news of my fellow Americans.

The games were awful. It seemed as though neither side could gain ground. Twenty-two minutes went by as the valiant English offense battered away at the stubborn Slovenes. Before long, Gerrard, Rooney and Terry were bathed in sweat in the muggy South African air, and yet the scoreboard remained at nil.

Then it happened. Glorious relief. Jermain Defoe, a substitute striker, received a cross from Milner and bopped it into the Slovene goal with his shin. Yes. England was ahead. My heart soared for St. George's cross. The game went back and forth from there on out. Six minutes later, Milner and Defoe tried the same trick again but couldn't pull it off. It was so quiet that the announcers could hear the England fans quietly singing. After a few close goal attempts, the Slovenes were beaten back. The English ran down the clock as best they could while I chewed my nails, my eyes clinging to the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen. After 93 minutes there was still no score in the USA-Algeria game.

The English game ended. "God Save the Queen" rang 'round Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. In Adam's mum's living room, there was jubilation. Adam and Jay were raucous, clinking cans of Carlson beer and rehashing the match in every detail. But they were good and sympathetic chaps. They patted my back, kept the TV on, and waited for news of my team.

And it happened again.

"News from Pretoria, the U.S. has scored against Algeria—"

The living room exploded. Adam, Jay and I leaped into the air, arms clasped about each other, yelling at the top of our lungs, the very air thundering with joy. Adam's mum stood there and grinned as the three of us worked off our overflowing emotions. The euphoria wouldn't let up. We'd been twice-blessed: each country had gone up against a seemingly unbeatable opponent, scored, and qualified for the next round. England had shut out Slovenia and the U.S. had beat down Algeria. Both teams were moving on to the Round of 16. In that golden afternoon, it was the best of all possible worlds.

And yet all good things must come to an end. The TV had hardly been turned off. The grins had not yet vanished from our faces. And yet the taxi was pulling up outside. It was time for me to collect my bags, ride with Adam to the train station, head to London, and spend a final 12 hours in that city before my flight to America the following morning. So it goes.

I said a heartfelt goodbye to Adam's mum and Elaine, threw my gear into the cab, and left. Adam and I soon found ourselves at the station. There was time enough for one more beer beforehand. Adam and I reaffirmed our friendship over a tall glass of suds, match recaps playing on every TV screen, travelers bustling past us. We chatted of this and that, loftily tossing around the possibility of another visit. That, I think, was the most bittersweet moment of them all. It was finally hitting me. I was leaving England. Who knew how long it would be before I saw all my crazy Geordie friends again?

The clock moved too quickly, as usual. I exchanged one last manly hug with Adam, shook his hand, hefted my knapsack over my shoulder, climbed on the train, and sat down. I gazed over the stained brick buildings of old Newcastle, the futuristic domes and bridges, the lush green trees and rolling hills. I stared into the gathering dusk and let out a hefty sigh. In that sigh were all the worries, dangers, adventures and joys I'd experienced during the past fortnight. (Two weeks! Lord! Had it only been two weeks?)

It didn't feel like quite enough. So I sighed again.

It helped ease the pain a little.

Adam and his lovely mum. Don't she rock that hat?

my northern sky

JUNE 21, 2010
1920 HOURS
NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND

Adam met me at the train station. We caught the metro to Monkseaton and a cab to Tynemouth. The middle-aged driver had "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell playing on her radio. (That kind of threw me for a loop.)

We rolled up to Adam's mum's house just as it was getting dark. We debated a bit about what we wanted for dinner; when Adam and Elaine discovered that I'd never had Indian food, they rang up Marks & Spencer and ordered some, pronto. In a little over an hour, two great heaping platters of naan bread and tikka masala rang the doorbell and deposited themselves in the living room. Ahhh, bliss, my friends, sheer bliss. I found tikka masala to have an intensely-spicy-yet-not-overwhelmingly-hot kind of flavor to it, a delight for the taste buds and the brain. And having that crumbly naan bread to sop up the sauce made the evening even better. I am now of the firm belief that the U.S. needs a more universal distribution of Indian delivery joints.

There remains little left to tell, dear reader. I took no more pictures after Edinburgh; no more notes are scrawled in my little red notebook after the evening of the 21st. Now, from here on out, I shall have to rely on my memory to finish the story.

...

Ha-ha-ha, I can already tell how this is going to go.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Well, some stuff happened, and then some other stuff, and a little more stuff after that. One thing led to another and I wound up on the point.

What's the point, you ask?

A "point" is, among other things, a projection of land that juts outward into a body of water. The particular point I'm talking about is just above the widest stretch of Newcastle Beach, where the surly North Sea sweeps onto fine golden sand. We were perched on a pile of rocks, dirt and grass about 100 feet above this panorama. This being summertime and all (or close to it) the sun sets in the northwest instead of the west. So you can sit on this point and look in a northish sort of direction and see the sun set over the rooftops.

It takes roughly three hours for the sun to do this. As I've mentioned previously, the planet's semi-spherical nature means that Earth has a remarkably small circumference this close to its northerly pole. Due to the shorter distance, and the constant speed of the Earth's rotation, it's as if the Earth is spinning slower the farther north you go. In Newcastle, the sun doesn't set swiftly like it would on the equator. It

slowly

creeps

down

toward

the

horizon

at

downright

sluggish

speeds. This means, then, if you happen to be a sunset lover like yours truly, Newcastle (and points north) should be a veritable haven for you. Particularly if you have a pack of fun-loving Geordies with you who like to sit on the point, drink beer, smoke, and jibe with each other.

...which is just what I did on the everlasting evening of June the 22nd. That pack of fun-loving Geordies and I had a ball. Jay was there, Mike and his girlfriend Vee, and Jon, and Adam & Elaine of course. We laughed, talked, sipped adult beverages, and just generally reveled in each other's company.

We'd spent most of the day watching the England and Algeria in the last slew of games before the Round of 16. England's performance was...disappointing, to say the least. The game was a complete deadlock. The Algerians were less interested in scoring than they were in preventing England from scoring. Focusing all their energies on defense, they utterly stymied their opponent. The big names on England's side—Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, John Terry, and Wayne Rooney—battered away at the Algerian goal with no success. The game ended in a miserable nil-nil draw.

The comments of the voracious football fans in Adam's mum's living room, watching this unfold on television, may well be imagined.

[Spoken in various species of Geordie brogue]

"This is disgustin'..."

"Come the fuck on!"

"Rooney looks fuckin' knackered!"

"We don't deserve to win this, do we?"

"Fuckin' hell..."

It was dispiriting. And as an encore, on behalf of the American in their midst, the company took in the U.S.A.-Slovenia game immediately thereafter. Another 0-0 tie. I was mighty disappointed in my fellow Americans. I expected more from Oguchi Onyewu, Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore, and Carlos Bocanegra—rather unfairly, as I'd never seen any of them in action before. I was somewhat ashamed. I felt that I really ought to know more about the guys playing on my national team, who represented my country in the largest international soccer (football) tournament in the world. The English guys knew more about the American players than I did, for Pete's sake! I kept my mouth shut during the game, only making generic comments about how disappointing the outcome was, and thus concealed my staggering ignorance.

But, at the end of the day, we commiserated over cans of Carlson out on the point, the fresh North Sea breeze in our faces and a staggeringly beautiful sunset unfolding slowly in front of us. This is my single greatest regret about the entire trip: that I didn't have my camera that evening. You'd have really loved the view. It looked a bit like this:

Only, like, you know, better. A lot better.

You'll have to take my word for it.

how I became a football nut

How is it possible that the world throws an amazing party every four years and I, so far, have been missing out?
And not just a party, either. It's a sports party. A soccer party. (Okay, fine, I'll even be multicultural and call it "football" if you want.)
It's the World Cup!
Football's my game. I played soccer for five years before high school, and was a referee two more years after that. (Which means that, yes, at one point in my life, I understood the offside rule. Bow in the presence of greatness, peasant.)
But I never dug watching it so much as playing it. Playing it was a blast, once I got myself into shape. I even scored a goal once. I was playing right forward on a glorious California afternoon, charging down the field, defenders left in the dust, goalie looking pale and scared and totally not up to our level of awesomeness—and the center passed, and BAM, I booted it right in. I reacted modestly, as I recall; now I'd like to erect a temple to myself.
Football was hard work, to be sure. Playing in Tennessee was humid, and often rainy. Playing in the desert was hot and dry. I worked with some prima donnas that would've put Beckham to shame, both coaches and players. And thanks to the precise orientation of some of the blood vessels in my right nostril, I got nosebleeds all the freakin' time. Every game I played, somebody would give that ball a kick three feet in front of me and it'd come soaring up in slow motion and conk me right on the snout, followed by a copious flood of vermillion.
Watching football was just...bleh. A bunch of tiny little men running around a big green field with white stripes, booting a ball back and forth. Whoop-de-doo.
Then I went to England. I was already aware that the World Cup was up and going. Heck, that was my purported reason for going to England in the first place, to watch the World Cup in the pub with my English friends. That was how I pitched it to my editor, anyway. I said, "Hey, I'm going to be rambling around Scotland, Ireland and northern England for two weeks in June, watching the World Cup in the pubs surrounded by a pack of ravening England fans [or, in Ireland's case, a pack of ravening Brazil supporters]. I'll be your war correspondent behind enemy lines, sir. I shall infiltrate the enemy's ranks and observe their football-related operations in intimate detail, if you please. How'd you like some dispatches from the front?"
At the time, I was speaking facetiously. Little did I realize how prophetic my levity would prove to be.
I rode the bus with Andrea up to Stansted Airport. It was a beautiful ride through picturesque English countryside, all fields, hedgerows, and woods that Robin Hood wouldn't have felt like a complete idiot hiding out in. Andrea, who (bless her heart) had treated me to a beer before we got on, got all caught with me during the ride, and I her. She'd been teaching university students in West London, but it was driving her mad: Western children aren't quite as industrious as our old Korean gang had been. I advised her to get out of the teaching business and go live by the seaside somewhere and write, all the while grinning inside. Somehow I always thought English kids were too smart to ask their professors to bump grades...
We made Stansted, checked in, and went through security. That was the only place where I was searched: dinky little Stansted Airport, about to board a domestic flight to Newcastle. I'd traveled thousands of miles over oceans and mountains and foreign lands, through international airports like McCarran and George W. Bush and Heathrow, and Stansted is where the curly-haired safety official pulled my bag off the scanner and rifled through it, chatting at me all the while with her nigh-incoherent English accent. Weird.
Anyway, we had a lovely 45-minute flight to Newcastle. I say "lovely," not because the flight itself was lovely, but because the views were lovely. I was sitting next to a lovely, slim, doe-eyed brunette, for one thing. Her name was Nicola and she was coming up from London to visit her Geordie boyfriend in Newcastle. So of course I said "Hey, Nicola baby, why settle for that bucolic bumpkin? Tag along with me and I'll show you what an old-fashioned home-grown grade-A American man is. I'll pierce the secret depths of your sorceress soul with my Longbow of Love, darling angel-pie."
Well, I didn't say that, exactly, but some version of it was running through my head as I chatted her up. She was quite friendly and open, and pointed out some of the sights as we came down for a landing—making a dramatic sweep out over the North Sea and then lancing back over the jagged coast. The orange sun was just kissing the horizon, lighting the rolling green lands beneath with a slanting, golden divinity. The waves crashed against the sands and rocks as we thundered over.
It was an auspicious start. This was "the Toon," and man, it looked beautiful. Andrea and I disembarked and met Adam and Elaine, our friends and local guides, in the terminal. We stepped out into the still-setting sun (I was about to learn how long-lasting and late the sunsets are in Newcastle in summer) and hailed a taxi. It was sure something seeing A & E again. It had been almost exactly a year since we parted in South Korea. Being near them, hearing that lovable Geordie accent tumbling around in my ears, observing the two of them again in their natural environment...it was almost unreal. I was overjoyed to be reunited with them and thrilled that I'd now get to play around on their home turf. Within the span of two minutes it was just like old times: we were laughing, talking, joking, jibing, doing all the myriad things we used to do together on those narrow streets and tiny restaurants in K-Land.
But this wasn't K-Land. I could tell that immediately. England flags were everywhere. St. George's Cross flew proudly from every upper-story window, every shopfront, even from the antennas of cars. This was football territory, and it was World Cup time. It came home to me then. I would be spending the next two weeks in a land utterly obsessed with football, during the most well-known international football competition in the world, in which both my country and England were competing. And, abruptly, I was transformed.
Think of the most fanatical, die-hard, sycophantic sports fan you know. He doesn't necessarily have to slather himself in his team's colors and leap up and down in the stands like a trained ape; he may not even own any memorabilia. But his soul, his essence, his life-force seems inextricably linked to the performance of his team. He'll scream and yell and holler when points are scored; rant and roar when an unfair call is (rightfully or wrongfully) perceived; become insufferably exuberant for hours after winning a game (or days, in the case of playoffs or championships); and likewise sulk for a full-length mourning period on the heels of a loss. Take that man, soak him in three pints of beer and dust him with a packet of pork rinds, and you have an English football fan. These guys are nucking futs. I was infected with this excitement, this ardor, this enthusiasm, this pandemic zeal within minutes of getting off the airplane in Newcastle. Suddenly I was pumped. I was raring to go. I was ready for some football. I wanted my team to win, more desperately than I wanted my own seaplane or a bootlegged copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Some hitherto inactive and unsuspected gland had been activated, galvanized by the competitive pheromones in the English air, and was feverishly flooding my body with footballmoxytocin and ballsinourcortisol, twenty-four years' worth of backlogged fan-pheromones. The chrysalis of apathy had come off, as had the gloves. I had been transfigured from a lackadaisical observer to a dyed-in-the-wool football nut in less time than it took László Kiss to score a hat-trick against El Salvador in 1982.
This was going to be sweet.
The first night was thankfully uneventful. I was exhausted by my travels, and by my long night of debauchery in Las Vegas some twenty-four hours before. Except for a few cat-naps here and there, I'd been awake for close to forty-eight hours. I was ferried to Adam's mum's house in a taxi, where I was fed, watered, and cleansed. Elaine's friend M came over and the four of us stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, sitting in Adam's mum's tiny conservatory, listening to AC/DC and Curtis Mayfield and just getting caught up.
I was floored. I was in England. I was sitting in the conservatory of an English house, looking out on the prim and proper English garden, surrounded by an English red-brick neighborhood, under a sky that refused to go completely dark in these northern latitudes. My soul boiled with excitement. My head swam with anticipation, happiness, and travel-induced delirium. I was out on the road again, back amongst friends, in for a hell of a time, and loving every second of it.
We'd originally resolved to stay up all night waiting for Jeff, but we figured since we'd be shouting and screaming and hollering and jumping up and down and drinking copious amounts of beer and watching the World Cup match the next day, we should probably get some rest. I was put to bed on a marvelously soft queen-size in an upstairs room. The view from the window looked like this (in the morning):

Adam warned me that I would likely be awakened in the middle of the night by Jeff, our Canadian friend, who was was also coming to the Korean reunion (from Korea, actually) and who was taking the night bus up from London. He and I would be splitting a bunk. If he did wake me up, I don't remember it. I was out like a light.
Well enough for me that I got my rest, for the next day was a momentous one: England's first game of the World Cup...versus none other than the USA. Time to explore the Toon first. We commenced with the Quayside, where the bridges which Newcastle is famous for spanned the mighty River Tyne.

We took a nice little stroll down by the waterfront, crossing the Millennium Bridge over to Gateshead, taking the elevator up and admiring the view.

We also stopped in at Greggs for a snack. Greggs is something like the Geordie McDonald's: only instead of burgers and stuff, it's pasties and pies. The steak bake was delicious. Check this mother out:

Then we stopped in at our first pub (yippee!). Bob Trollops, just off the Quay.

Lovely little place. I'd been dying to try some English cider. I'd had some Old Rosie at Adam's the night before, and liked it a lot. Had something of a sulfuric overtone to it, but was very equable otherwise. I saw no reason to quit there, however, so I procured some Strongbow. Named after the Norman who made the first official British expedition to Ireland back in medieval times, Strongbow is your basic English cider: apple-tasting, fizzy, and roughly as alcoholic as beer. It makes a nice change from beer, though, and gets the same job done.
And there I was, sitting in a tiny, dark, woody, brass-laden English pub with a couple of mates and some cider.
You know that feeling you get when you realize one of your lifelong dreams? Yeah, I was getting that feeling about then.
We exited Trollops and headed up the rather steep Dean Street....


...which became Grey Street, if I remember correctly...

...which led us to Grey's Monument, smack dab in the middle of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne city center. It was built to honor Charles Grey, one of the architects who designed most of modern Newcastle.

That's Charles, Earl Grey to you. Yes, the guy the tea is named after. Cool, huh? You didn't think Newcastle was all meat pies and bridges and Brian Johnson, did you?

The place was hopping at mid-Saturday. There are about three different shopping centers clustered around Monument Square; Newcastle University ain't far away, either, and there are enough pizza joints, pubs, and book stores to choke a horse.

We wandered up Northumberland Street, checking out Fenwick's Food Halls. They sell boatloads of candy, booze and deli-style pies, pasties, sandwiches, and Indian food. I was full up on Greggs and drooling anyway. Angelic Elaine let me try some of her chicken tikka masala sandwich.

We kept on, and hung a right at St. Mary's Place (at Newcastle University, where Princess Eugenie Victoria Helena Mountbatten-Windsor of York—insert loving sigh here—is doing the equivalent of her master's degree).

A few hundred yards brought us to Luckies Corner Bar. Like every other pub I was to visit in the U.K. and Ireland, they had a big projector set up inside, already spreading some World Cup pregame love over the spacious interior.

We met up with some more of A & E's friends at Luckies: Nathan, Aaron, and Michael, all solid lads. Bets were going around, being hotly debated and finally placed with the aid of Michael's iPhone. I hadn't realized what a roaring betting culture England has going, especially where football matches are concerned. There were betting houses on every street corner. The Brits'll put 50 pence down on anything: who'll win, how much they'll win by, the final score, the fastest goal, the highest-scoring player...even how many corner kicks there'll be.

Me being the only Yank surrounded by a cadre of English people, the badinage began to fly. They were "taking the piss" out of me, as they say up there. Several rather disparaging remarks were made about the United States' chances against England, which got my red-blooded American dander up. So I hauled out a "chunk" (one British pound coin; thick little buggers, they are) and put it down on the US to beat England 2-1.

There remained but to sit, drink, and wait.
The game came on. The action began. I sat there, watching my friends both old and new unanimously yell at the projector screen, feeling a curious sort of nervousness. It wasn't concern for my chunk, oh no. It was the football-mania again. I folded my arms so no one would see my hands shaking. I kept up a bold front, giving as much lip as I got. Inside, I was pulled tighter than a guitar string. My homeland's manly pride—not to mention $1.40—was on the line.
England scored in three minutes. My forehead hit the table as the pub erupted. A cacophony of hoarse screams and yells resounded through the enclosed space, bedlam on the ears, needles in the pincushion of prestige. Suddenly all the world was gray and lightless, void of cheer, or even the promise of it. This, I thought, was what it must be like to be a football fan.
I recovered with difficulty. I sat up, withstood the laughing jibes of my so-called friends, took a commiserating sip of beer, and took my life in my hands by chalking the English goal up to luck. The next thirty-six minutes inched by, spurred on by my gritted teeth and clenched fists. My eyes were locked onto the projector screen in a death-grip. I didn't even know that my eyes could grip anything before then. If an earthquake had struck the pub at that moment, the projector screen would've held rock steady, so intently were my eyeballs gripping it. The fingers of my very soul were crossed.
And it happened. Just as I was up at the bar ordering another pitcher of Fosters, the ball slid between Robert Green's fingers and rolled into the net.



My brain immediately clamped down on the rest of my body to prevent it from leaping into the air. My eyebrows seesawed. My arms jumped and wavered about, threatening to shoot skyward, like rockets on tethers. Half-strangled cheers and yells of approbation clawed their way up my neck and died, suffocating behind mumbling lips. I settled for giving the barman a friendly wink as I handed him £7.50.
We'd equalized. The US was tied, 1-1. My prediction might still come true. We might win.
The rest of the game was no less tense. All of us leaned forward in our chairs (or back, depending on which way we were sitting). Hearts pounded. Eyes dared to blink. Tongues danced over dry lips. Fingers drummed on tables and knees. Disgusted shouts rang out now and then. The noise in the pub fell to a whisper, rising to crescendo when England got a run on the American goal. But no further goals were scored. And suddenly it was over. A 1-1 draw. My pound was lost, but my national dignity and my life were intact. We celebrated that night with beer, dancing, and a trip to the Pink Triangle, the gay area of Newcastle, whence the gay bars and Goths traditionally were located. Adam danced with an enormous, smiling fat guy as we all got drunk and laughed. We went out for Greek food after and ate in the shadow of the solemn stone keep wall that surrounded the city in medieval times. We somehow made our way back home in the wee hours of the morning, beer-soaked, exhausted, sweaty, stuffed to the gills, and happy as we'd been in a long, long time.

And that was just the first day.

over there

Well, wish me luck, my faithful minions. I am not long for these shores. This time tomorrow I'll be on my merry way to Las Vegas with Alice, a friend and former classmate of mine, who's graciously offered me a ride to Las Vegas. We'll raise some hell, shoot some dice, drink a few, and then come the dawn I'll hit the skies for England, the pubs, some dear friends, and the World Cup on the telly. There may also be a few castles, train rides, world-class museums, and whiskey bottles thrown in somewhere. You'll hear all about when I get back. See you on the 24th....