Watching the Super Bowl in England

The Super Bowl is this Sunday, February 3rd and I'm getting excited! I'm a fairly new fan of NFL football and having been watching for about three years now. I've watched football in passing over the years as I grew up with a sister and brother who loved football, but I never was an active fan. I've always watched bits of the Super Bowl, but in the past it was mostly for the commercials and the half-time show.

Around here we may have some snacks, but nothing official in the vein of a Super Bowl party. I've been looking around on the internet, and I've found that there are loads of events in London that are being held in honor of the Super Bowl. American football has really developed a following over here in the UK over recent years. The NFL have even played a game over here for the last few years to give UK fans a chance to experience a NFL game. I think that this has definitely expanded the game with fans over here who didn't grow up with the NFL like I did. Several London bars and pubs are offering a full night of Super Bowl fun and it would be great to go. I think that it would be an intriguing experience to watch an American classic in the heart of London.

Brit Boy and I are going to do our best to watch most of the game, however it will be late here, so we might be snoring after a point. I may even Skype with my niece in the lead up in order to have some laughs. We'll do our best to bring some Super Bowl buzz to our corner of England. It should be a fun night. We'll have our snacks at the ready and I'll be singing along with Beyonce and the reunited Destiny's Child at half-time ;-)

My Atlanta Falcons didn't make it this time, but they came close. They had a great season! I'm still a Falcons fan...win or lose! So I don't know who I'm gonna cheer for. This clash is between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. I'll probably just cheer for the sake of cheering and for nobody in particular. LOL. Why not?

If you'll be watching, I hope that you enjoy it! I know I will.

The Sports Ground Debut!

Hello all! Happy Friday!

Well, in my previous post I talked about watching the Super Bowl. It was a great night here at the Yellow House and we ended up staying up for the whole thing, which was well after 3am here. It was fun!

So I thought that I would mention another ‘sporty spice’ kind of thing to continue this trend for one more post. No, I haven’t taken up a sport…yet ;-) However, my Brit Boy, who is the real sporty one around here has opened a new chapter in his blogging life.



Brit Boy has started a new sports blog called, The Sports Ground, and he will cover a wide array of sports, since this is one of his great loves. He will concentrate mostly on football aka soccer, but he will also be blogging about sports that are enjoyed on both sides of the Atlantic. One of his recent posts was about his take on the Super Bowl, so the transatlantic life of the Yellow House extends into his new blog, just like it does in mine.

So if you’re a sports fan or if you just want to read the knowledgeable musings of Brit Boy on all things sports…take a trip on over and check him out! :-)

*****

As for me, I’ve been doing fine and will be blogging about one of my new favorite things in my next post. I love a cliffhanger…lol.

Have a great weekend!

Collective Experiences & Super Bowls

Hello all :-) I’m so glad that I can finally get a chance to post here. It has seemed like forever since the last time. I’ve been kinda knee deep in studying and various things, so today is a beautiful lull in it all. Today I’ve just been trying to have some down time, although I did cook this afternoon and I even exercised this morning. But both of those things are making things better in the long run, so they sort of work into this whole reconnecting thing that I’m up to lately.

It will probably be a bit of a late night tomorrow night, but that’s customary for me these days anyway. As I’ve mentioned here before, I usually get a burst of energy at around 11pm and then I’m wide awake for a couple of hours at least. So it’ll work out really well for tomorrow night in particular.

As many of you know, tomorrow is Super Bowl XLV. Here in England it will be shown later over into the night, starting a bit before 11pm (my golden hour)…LOL. So the timing is tailor-made for me. Brit Boy plans to check it out too for a while. I doubt if we'll stay up for it all, but you never know. The end will probably get recorded ;-)

Here’s the thing…I’m not really an NFL football fan or really a sports fan at all. LOL. I watch tennis and golf a little bit and dip into baseball sometimes, but I’m not what I’d call a “sporty spice” ;-) Note: I often say this "sporty spice" thing. LOL. It comes from one of the Spice Girls' names and I just kinda adopted that to mean a sports fan or in my case not a sports fan. I'm known to make up names for stuff like that. LOL. I’m quite pedestrian about most sports. Brit Boy is an avid sports fan, with football aka soccer, being his favorite. So anyway, as you see, I’m no sports fan. However, over the years I’ve more often than not tuned in to the Super Bowl at least for part of it. And the halftime show always pulls me in.

I was having a bit of a think about this earlier and I guess that the Super Bowl for me is more about the collective experience of the whole thing. We don’t get many of those nowadays with our attention being pulled in various directions. With so many channels nowadays and the internet, it is rare to share something with so many people. And I think that for me, since I live abroad, it has become a collective experience even more. It makes me feel connected to home in a roundabout way. It’s funny when I think about it. Who knew that a football game would EVER have that kind of pull upon me :-)

So tomorrow night we’ll be watching along with millions of others. We won’t have the special commercials to watch from over here, but there’s still the halftime show and all that exuberance to take a look at ;-) It should be fun!

Then it’s back to business on Monday, but the weekend has so far been just what I’ve needed. Have a great weekend! :-)

Wembley Excitement

Brit Boy is out enjoying himself at Wembley Stadium today with a couple of friends. He is there to cheer on his beloved team, Swindon Town, as they go up against Millwall in the final of the League One Play-Offs. He is so loyal to his team and that’s one of the things that I love about him…his loyalty. He is not a fair-weather fan :-) He has supported this team forever, even when they have done awfully, and now that they are playing on the “big stage”, he is there to celebrate!

I sent him off this morning with a goodie bag and a big hug. He took a coach/bus into Wembley with his friends and he was really excited. It was raining a bit when he left, so I hope it clears up around London by match time. I know he was hoping for better weather, but if Swindon Town win, not one drop of rain will register in his memory of the day! :-) As a longtime fan he has earned the thrill of this day!

Brit Boy is much better at explaining the history of the game and the team, so if you like, please visit him over at “his blog” because he’s blogged about today’s buildup. He’s also been “tweeting” from there today also.

I’ve been to Wembley twice with Brit Boy. We went to see the England team play a couple of years ago and in 2007 we went to the Concert for Diana at the stadium too. It was a great concert and it was wonderful to be there to see Princes William and Harry pay tribute to their dear mother. It was very moving.

I decided to stay home today and let Brit Boy enjoy his football/soccer with his friends. I’m not a big football fan, but I will watch it on occasion. I just thought that it was great for him to have some guy time.

So I’m here on my own today, enjoying a slightly drizzly day, with my books, laptop, and a bit of television. Here’s to relaxing Saturdays ;-) And hopefully a big win!!!!

My Weekend Again

This past weekend was one where we didn’t venture out much, which was a nice change. I like weekends that find Brit Boy and I just hanging around the house...the “Yellow House in England”. (smile) So Saturday Brit Boy and I did venture out for a couple of hours, but only a few streets over to his mother’s house. She was cleaning out her garage and had hired a skip(dumpster) to pile it all into and then it is getting picked up today. Anyway, we went up there for a couple of hours to help her load stuff in. Near the end of the cleanup, I spotted a shelf that had some things still piled on it and saw a skateboard. I asked Brit Boy whose it was since he has a sister and brother also. He perked up when he saw it and said that it was his skateboard. He wiped the dust off and smiled with glee. I almost thought that he was gonna go at it right there and skate down the street. (smile) Awww, my Brit Boy, the skater-boy. (smile) He was so cute. So he brought it home and he says he is gonna shine it up. What a sweet reminder of the joys of when we were kids. (smile)

I didn’t have acupuncture this past Saturday. I am trying to save money and also I am doing pretty well right now. Knock on wood.

After our morning of cleaning and skating down memory lane, we came back home and did our own things. I went upstairs and read, while Brit Boy perched himself on the sofa to watch TV and enjoyed some footie...that's soccer to my American brethren...(smile). He was watching the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. It was a huge matchup in the football world...Portsmouth vs Cardiff City. Portsmouth won in the end 1-0. Brit Boy and I went to Wembley in 2007 twice, once to see the England national team and then to attend the Concert for Diana. Both were fun times, even though I am not a big football fan, but I can watch it okay. It was just great to have the experience and to share it with my Brit Boy. The concert was amazing!!! Loved it. We saw some great musical performances and we saw both princes, William and Harry.

Speaking of Royals, while I was upstairs reading, I was leafing through the paper. I read a blurb in the paper about Princess Beatrice getting a position as a personal shopper for VIP clients at a major London retail store. I visited that store among many when we were in London in April....loved it! (smile) A fun and fabulous job for anyone’s gap year I think. Also Princess Anne’s son, Peter Phillips got married to Canadian Autumn Kelly on Saturday at St George’s Chapel at Windsor. Brit Boy and I have been to Windsor Castle and the surrounding town of Windsor a while back. It was a great day out when we went. Anyway, that was my tiny bit of royal watching. (smile)

On Sunday, we had breakfast together and then Brit Boy studied. I went upstairs again and worked on transferring my music and photos to my new green computer. As you may remember from an earlier post, I got a new laptop. Incidentally, this was not because I am a lover of the latest in technology, but simply due to my five year old laptop packing up on me. My old laptop will still turn on and stuff, but it will freeze up on a whim and after a while it just becomes futile to try and use it. So we reluctantly took the plunge and got me another laptop, which I am typing on right now. Anyway, I spent a while sifting through my music and ended up having my very own little dance party. (laugh) I LOVE dance music, so I was dancing around upstairs with my headphones on as I went through all the music I had saved on the old laptop. I also love mostly every other type of music, but I love my dance music.

After a while I came downstairs and made some lunch/dinner. It was good. It was sort of a “clear out the fridge spicy pasta dish” and it turned out to hit just the right spot on both of our palates. For dessert, we had the last two red velvet cupcakes. Why are the last bits of something always the best? (laugh)

So we ended up the day on the sofa together watching a movie, with the sweet aftertaste of cupcakes on our breath.