Super Bowl Sunday (Night)

Yesterday I missed the States more than usual. Super Bowl Sunday. My stomach instinctively craved chips and guacamole, pizza, hot dogs, and a nice cold beer. It was easy to put the world of soccer aside because all Italian games had been cancelled due to a violent incident that occurred between Palermo and Catania earlier that week. And though I wasn't at home to watch the game in usual tradition, I was still ready for some football.

It's tough to get excited for a game when most of your knowledge of the year in football is based on ESPN articles. But I had seen the Seahawks/Bears game, and I knew that as long as Rex Grossman was taking snaps, it would be an eventful game. His decision making is mind-boggling, and every time he takes pressure from a pass rush, it turns into a big game of flyer's up, with Bad Rex blindly heaving the ball up for anyone to grab. You have to love the guy for keeping things so unpredictable.

We watched the game at Red Gartner, a large American bar down by Santa Croce frequently infested with East Coast kids wearing Red Sox hats. They were there in full force as usual, pretending to be die-hard Colts or Bears fans after studying some stats or reading a few John Clayton articles on espn.com. We had reserved a section for Gonzaga students in a large booth with a view of a couple small TV's, and the set-up wasn't bad. However, SKY Sports had some strange coverage going on, with the dude from Miami Vice doing the play-by-play and none of the actual Super Bowl commercials. At first I was worried that I wouldn't have a good Super Bowl experience, but then there was an X-Factor: Girls with pitchers of beer. It's probably the greatest situation you can have. A girl buys a pitcher for her and her friend and they end up drinking about an eighth of it. You find yourself left with the responsibility of not being wasteful. It might as well have been a keggar.

Anyway, the game was ugly, neither team played well, and Peyton Manning won the MVP by default. Still, all the fumbles, interceptions, and kick-off returns kept things exciting the whole way through. I made it back to my pensione around 5 a.m., got a little sleep, and made it to school the next day extremely tired but satisfied as well. It wasn't a bad Super Bowl at all. However, it won't come close to next year when the Hawks are there once again and I have all the resources for a good Super Bowl feast (Safeway and girls that like to cook) at my disposal.

It's back to studying for me, with two big tests tomorrow. Hopefully they go well and I can put all my energy towards getting ready for Instanbul this weekend. Ciao!