USA 2, Spain 0

I know this country is not a fan of soccer, but it's important to me. This game is in the top three most important games I've ever watched in my life. Here comes the list:

3. World Cup '94, July 4th, Brazil 1 - USA 0

The entire side of my family on my dad's side were in Vermont for the Fourth of July, and my dad took me home away from the festivities to watch us take on the best team in the world. We were by far the worst team in our group of Switzerland, Romania, and Colombia. We made it through to the 2nd round when an accidental own goal by Andres Escobar gave us a 2-1 win over Colombia. He was shot to death outside a bar when he returned home to Colombia after this. That's how serious soccer is in Colombia, and how bad we were back then. So we played a close game against the best team in the world. We even went a man up when Tab Ramos was elbowed in the face. It was the first soccer game that I watched from start to finish on TV.

2. Confederations' Cup 2009, June 24th, USA 2, Spain 0

This happened today, but it was immense. It's the best team that the American soccer team has ever beaten. We beat #1 Brazil in 1998, but it was basically an under-23 team. This was a full strength Spain team, ranked #1 in the world. They didn't have a single golden opportunity to score. I celebrated so hard when we made it 2-0 that I slammed my finger into the ceiling of my friends' house where I watched the game. A great defensive performance following a tough break against Italy, an embarrassing showing against Brazil, and a gutsy showing against Egypt to get out of the first round. This happened today and I'm still on a natural high 4 hours after the game ended.

1. World Cup '02, June 5th, USA 3, Portugal 2

I was on summer break after freshman year of college, and despite my job that required me to wake up at 8:30 AM, I watched every game of this World Cup that had every game start at 1 AM and 3 AM. Portugal was at it's highest level of skill in this tournament and was far and away the favorite in this group with us, Poland, and South Korea. We were ahead 3-0 early in the 2nd half, and Portugal eventually cut it to 3-2. I can easily say this is the most stressed I have ever been at 4 in the morning. My dad had gotten up for this game, and we were horrified. We held on to win the game and we eventually moved on to the 2nd round with South Korea, the two lowest ranked teams. Our win against Spain was against a tougher opponent, but this was in the World Cup and counts as more.

Needless to say, the Portugal and Spain games are both still saved on my TiVo.

Bitch Be Crazy

*Becca twitches violently in her sleep*

Me: "Are you okay?"

*Becca's eyes pop open*

Becca: "Mmm hmm"

*Ten seconds pass*

Becca: "Why did you ask me if I had to pee?"

Me: "I said 'Are you okay?'. Why did you say you had to pee, yet you're still lying in bed?"

*Becca starts giggling, appears to go back to sleep, then gets up to go to the bathroom*

Becca battling with reality

Lost spoiler alert

Immediately after Juliet proclaimed her love for Sawyer and fell into the pit to her apparent death, Becca was bawling and leapt for the tissues. As she did this, she started quickly stating "They're not real. They're not real".

She was referring to the characters that were causing her to lose her mind.

Should I seek professional help for her?

France Blog - 3/30

We decided to take it easy on our last day, so we walked up Montmartre to Sacre Coeur.

We walked down a few random streets just to check out the neighborhood off the beaten path. We stumbled across a tiny little park with a playground, some benches, and a statue. We were sitting on the bench talking for a little bit and then I glanced over at the statue. I had come across this statue when I was on my class trip to Paris as a junior in high school! It's completely random because this park is nowhere near anything interesting, and itself isn't interesting. Why would my tour guide 9 years ago even bring is here? And what are the odds that we would come here on our own? Very strange. Anyway, I had to replicate the picture I took back then, so here it is: 

We ate in Tertre Place which is the square where all of the artists sell their work and track you down to see if they can paint or draw you. It was noon, but apparently nobody was hungry. We were the only ones eating at our restaurant for our entire meal. I had the onion soup, beef bourgogne, and creme caramel. Becca had some sort of pesto pasta.

We went to the steps at Sacre Coeur and decided to listen to the small band playing and people watch while enjoying the view of the city. The singer was a Mexican guy wearing a Jared Borgetti jersey, so he started off on the wrong foot. He was good though. He played 11 songs before he finished and the final count was 3 songs by British bands, 4 by American bands, and 4 by Mexican bands. Halfway through their set, a guy hopped up on one of the small pillars at the top of some stairs and started juggling a soccer ball. The pedestal he was on was probably 2x2, or 3x3 and he only dropped it twice in about an hour! It was crazy. Look in the background on the left in the pictures with the guy singing.

He even had the ball spinning on a pen, which he put in his mouth and then climbed a lamp post. WHILE THE PEN WAS IN HIS MOUTH AND SUPPORTING THE SPINNING BALL.

His name is Iya Traore and you can check out his stuff by going to his website: iyatraore.com, or searching for him on google video.

All in all it was a very relaxing day and we really enjoyed it. We walked down the hill to the market and got an easy dinner, got packed, watched some TV, and went to bed. And that was it for the trip!

France Blog - 3/29

  We went back to see our buddy at the patisserie and got our usual croissant and pain chocolat. We took the metro to the Jardin de Luxembourg. It's a large garden around the Maison de Luxembourg, which is where the French Senate does their work. The gardens are apparently where every single Parisien does their jogging. There were lots of sculptures, statues, and fountains. They also had trees from all around the world planted around the garden. In the American tree section, they had a small scale Statue of Liberty (not to be confused with the small-scale-but-bigger Statue of Liberty located in the Seine). Next to it was a tiny tree that they had planted in 2001 as a memorial for 9/11. That was nice, kind of a metaphor for growing stronger over time? I'm getting too deep here...

There was a big fountain just outside the senate building, and one side of it was lined with former queens of France. Then right in the middle of this line was a big, honking, gold head that looked like it got lost on it's way to Easter Island. Very weird.

We then walked to the Eglise Val de Grace. It was a smaller church but the altar was really cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it. We made it a quick visit as a security guard seemed to find us interesting. We went to a small store and got lunch. I had a mini pizza and Becca had something made of quiche.

We then walked to the Jardin des Plantes. It is a big open space, but at this time of year it was unimpressiving as nothing was really blooming yet.

I really had to go to the bathroom so we looked at the map of the gardens and saw the bathroom was off in a corner in something called the Menagerie. It also said that it was near the kangaroos. We were a bit confused, but went there and found that it was a zoo! It's located in the Jardin des Plantes and it's pretty big. This was not divulged in our guidebook, which we found odd. So we went in and spent a few hours checking out the animals. A pleasant surprise.

We left and were starving. It was about 5:00 but we sat down for dinner anyway. We ordered some more "strong" 1664. They were taking a long time, we were tired, and we didn't have any other plans for the day, so we had a few beers and were pretty buzzed by the time our dinner came: goat cheese salad and a burger (yes, I had a burger in Paris...deal with it). Becca was laughing her ass off because, for some reason, people kept pulling on the door to the restaurant despite it saying "Poussez" (push) on it. Every time they would pull, it would slam the door frame and the walls would shake. I think the beers helped her along, but she was rollin'.

We then walked through the Latin Quarter on our way to the metro home. The Latin Quarter is called that because it's where the colleges are located, and the learned folk speak Latin. It has a lot of narrow side streets that is mostly foot traffic that parts like the Red Sea for the occasional car that comes through.