Football!

The temperature has been dropping is the past week, with night-time lows dipping below freezing. I find the -5 °C bike rides to school to be crisp. The local teachers ask if this is how it is back home, to which I reply that it is much colder usually. I understand that back in Manitoba, the temperature has been quite mild for this time of year. Here, I have spotted a few icicles on my way to school, but with the mist rolling with warmer humid air, they do no not last very long.

Two weekends ago, after taking a weekend off from touristy things to recover from my Christmas holidays, I went North-East across Suffolk and into the county of Norfolk. (See map of East Anglia.) According to the article in the travel magazine on the train, Bill Bryson, author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, (among others) now resides. I decided to visit the Norfolk capital of Norwich. The ride there was quite uneventful. The view from the train along the back ways of the mainly flat landscape allows us to see a lot of back sides of buildings, some fields and we were often travelling in a trench created to minimize the effects the train had on the landscape. Norwich itself looked really neat. I didn’t get much of a chance to do a lot of exploring because I went on after church, and everything shuts down at 4:00 on Sundays. I visited some of the shops of the high street, was drawn in the Castle Mall (just because I haven’t been in a mall for ages) and spent a about 3 hours in the Castle Museum, which includes castle history, Viking connections, the world’s largest collection of antique tea pots (woo-hoo), an Egypt exhibit (artefacts donated by locals who has toured Northern Africa), a natural history museum and art exhibits. It was good, but I was reminded why I don’t go to art museums anymore. It was the last portion of my tour, and I just walked by thinking “painting of a forest, painting of a canal, painting of a canal through a forest, painting of a boat on a canal, another painting of a boat on a canal… painting of a boat on a canal flowing next to the edge of a forest…”. I guess my head wasn’t into it. There were a few paintings that did capture my imagination, though. One in particular was a painting of the artist in his studio surrounded my some of his previous paintings, emphasizing the diversity of his styles. In the painting, while he was working on one piece, he was giving advice to an apprentice about his work, a benefactor was overlooking his progress, and on the side there were two art students studying a sculpture. I guess I had often envisioned art to be created by people misunderstood in their own time who often worked alone and in obscurity. I really had not given much thought about the collaboration process of artists.

Last week, I decided to go to a football (or “soccer” in North America) match of the local Colchester United Team. I thought it was about time since I live close enough to the stadium that its bright lights shine through my bathroom window on game days. I understand the game well enough, but I am still trying to understand the football culture here. When I first arrived in the UK, I often saw people wearing sport jerseys (either striped or solid colour) with the logo of local mobile phone companies such as O2 and Vidafone or even Samsung. I thought that it was a really weird culture to be so committed to a phone company that you would go out in t public with an expensive jersey with their logo. It wasn’t until later that I realised that above the sponsor logo was a football team crest, about 1/5 the size of the sponsor’s. A lot of the teams have their sponsors’ logos overshadowing the team crest, but the public don’t seam to mind because the teams are identifiable by the colours and crest. Colchester’s sponsor is Colchester Skip, a company that rents out huge garbage containers used during major renovations. Well, Colchester is in one of the lower leagues, so you can’t look the gift horse in the mouth.
Another thing that gets me is that the goalkeepers have different colour jerseys that their team mates (which I guess makes it easier for the officials to identify who can touch the ball with their hands). Familiar with the identifiable “zebras” (a.k.a. referees) in hockey, basketball, and Canadian football, sometimes I have a hard time to identify the official in these football matches, particularly when both teams playing against each other are wearing their striped jerseys.
Anyway, I was able to get a front row seat behind the goal. I thought that for an extra £4 I could splurge a little, besides I won’t go to many of these games anyway. This is my third European football match, but my first time sitting so close to the action where I needed to be sure I kept my eye on the action at all times, not wanting to get smacked in the head by a stray ball. For some reason, even though I was closer, the field looked smaller, I guess because I had lost some depth perception. Both home goals were scored at my end, which really made my proximity to the field even more special. The only negative thing was that there was no-one in front of me to block the chilling wind. The home team won 2-1, and the fans celebrated they had taken over the first place position from rival South-End-on-the-Sea (the other Essex team).

Another interesting bit of news – I received a package from Canada on the 25th of January from friends of my church back home. They had put together a care package during the Grey Cup Party (end of November) including chocolates (which have been all consumed already) Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Christmas cards and well-wishes. It got here a month after Christmas, but it was still appreciated just the same. I feel blessed that I am still in the thoughts and prayers of all the people back home. I really appreciate the e-mails, comments on my blog and letters from you.

Shalom
Kevin