It's incredible how much I miss American sports. Watching the NFL actually makes me feel a little closer to home, and yet it also makes me miss everyone I used to watch the games with. At least I can watch the NFL, though. It's on early enough in the day. I can't see the NHL or college basketball. I couldn't watch the Pirates in the playoffs. I've never considered myself a sports fanatic. I always loved my Pittsburgh teams, but I didn't live and die by them. Now, I realize how much a part of my social life the games were, and how relaxing it was to watch my games while pretending to do work at home. Sports are a very cultural and local thing. I've watched a couple Premier League soccer games here, but they don't excite me. I appreciate the physicality of rugby, but I don't enjoy watching it. Cricket just makes no damn sense at all. Still, I've met people that swear by each one of them, calling their preferred sport a "proper sport." I find it fascinating seeing what sports people grow up with and are passionate about, yet have no real effect on me. Every community, every culture has a signature sport or two. I think in America we have more than most. It's a rare day that doesn't have some televised sporting event going on.
So many of my social gatherings involved sports. During the fall, I'd see my friends mostly on Sunday during football games. During the winter and spring, it was hockey. In the summer, so many trips are scheduled that social time is difficult, but usually someone organizes a day or two to get everyone to a baseball game. The funny thing is that we don't even watch the games sometimes, but they are always the most convenient excuse for getting people together. I normally get jittery in big groups, but not during the Super Bowl or March Madness. Those were my two biggest social events of the year, and I never missed them. When all my guy friends wanted to get together for a road trip, it was for basketball at Madison Square Garden. The one surefire way of getting Tommy and Dad down to Annapolis was to see a Navy game, especially when Pitt came to town. The most social I've ever been at work was when George organized "the soccer" after school on Fridays. Right now, it kills me that the Super Bowl will immediately be followed by the Sochi Olympics, and I won't be watching either at the Billy Bar.
So, oddly enough, one of the most challenging parts of adjusting to a new country is getting used to new sports. Even if I'm not a fanatic nor very athletically inclined, my social life has tended to revolve around sports. As it happens, I wandered into a pub nearby advertising Sky Sports. I asked if they showed NFL games, and that led to a nice long conversation with the bartender and the manager. When I wandered over to the pool tables, I found myself quickly in conversation with a small group of guys that invited me to join the game. It was the most comfortable and effortless social situation I'd found in a while, and it revolved around talking about football and playing pool.
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