The Superbowl in Ireland

Did I forget to mention that I watched the Superbowl last weekend?

I think I did. That might sound fairly mundane to those of you stateside, but here in Ireland the Superbowl usually happens between 11pm and 4am. The first year we caught it was a fabulous occurance. I ran all around town in desparate hopes of finding a forgiving pub where we might catch at least the beginning of the game to no avail.

Then, one of our local publicans rang me.

He explained that he had 8 friends from Chicago over and would we be interested in watching the game that night. Allllllriiight! We had our own private big screen superbowl experience that year. I rang my friend Matt back home at one point to let him know I had managed to catch the Superbowl, in fact I was just about to tuck into a fresh pint and a slice of pizza in an Irish pub where the game was being projected onto an entire wall of the pub, despite it being around 3am in the morning.

That was a year to remember, all right.

The major downside to watching the Superbowl from here is threefold:

1. British superbowl announcers just don’t hold a candle to John Madden.

2. No Superbowl commercials. Instead, you get late night ads for “fine light beer – Coors” and lonely sexy british girls who want to talk to you! (call now – only £3.95/minute).

3. It goes on til feckin 4am!

The last two years have been a decidedly satisfactory experience at a close friend’s house. This superbowl just past, however, the crowd meant to show up for the experience amounted to two of us desparately trying to keep our eyes open among the hors d’vours as the last minutes ticked by.

Sad, I know.