Yesterday was a day full of surprises and unplanned adventures. As i walked into my office on campus, Matt, one of the american students was busy looking over the SU athletics website. He said that there is a football game on and i could join him if i would like to. Having never seem american football live in a stadium, i said a quck yes and off we went to the Carrier Dome, very close to campus with a 40,000 seating capacity.
Syracuse University team was playing Cicinnati, a pretty strong team with a good track record. The noise, drama, fight songs, visual overdose of orange ( the university colour) and chanting of "Go Orange, Go" filled the Air and i couldnt help but cheer for our team. Despite a brave fight, we lost 28-7 against a team which tackled well, made great passes and was by and large a well run team.
I had to leave to call my mom during half time, but the experience itself was quite interesting and as a budding Sociologist, i could see the linkage of a few facets of popular american culture to the behaviour of fans in the stadium.
The evening brought in more, ghoulish surprises in the form of the "Maxalloween", a party organised by the Maxwell school grad students. The Halloweeen party was a visual treat as well. Right from Harry Potter to Sarah palin, we had all characters represented in the costumes. I myself was dressed as a Hawaiian tourist, with my Bali Batik shirt which i tried to pass off as Hawaiian. One friend who lived in Indonesia for some time pointed out that i was more Indonesian than Hawaiian, but i think i passed off as a tourist quite well.
Food, dance and good conversations, not to mention a great round of pool ( two games of which i won) made for a good evening. The after -party was a bit of a letdown and i just walked home happy and tired after a day of observing and participating in two key American traditions.
2 comments:
American "football" is what we Brits refer to as "rugby for girls".
hey sounds like you are having fun. Am so glad for you:)
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