Tour Stop 4: Damian’s in Dutch Now!

Games 6 & 7
My living room and The Cambrense Cafe in Hartford

June 11, 2006

Day three of the World Cup had another 3 matches on tap, two of which I planned to take in. After yesterday’s indoctrination, Damian was ready to roll again today. The Netherlands were matched up against Serbia and Montenegro. Two on one again I see. No fair! For those of you familiar with soccer or speed skating, you know the Dutch are INSANE when it comes to cheering for boring sports. They all dress up in orange and sing songs for hours and drink a lot of beer and blow loud horns and other crazy stuff.

The Montenegro-ans and the Serbians? Who knows. And quite frankly, who cares as my son picked his team and went all the way with it from the opening kick-off. How far? Oh, you’ll see. Perhaps it was the cute fans dressed up like orange lions that did the trick:

wc4k.jpg

Whatever it was, Damian was hooked on Orange. (I did explain this doesn’t count for Syracuse.) In fact, those of you with TiVos or DVRs, perhaps you noticed when they scanned the crowd…

wc4l.jpg

Didn’t catch that? Zooming in further… who’s that the arrow is pointing at?

wc4m.jpg

Can’t make it out? Using my MuseumQuest Photoshop enhancement tool, I was able to pick out one fan in particular…

wc4a.jpg
He’s positively rabid for the Dutch! (Look at those big toes!)

After the morning session, we drove out to Cheshire to celebrate our friends Kevin and Jenny’s daughter’s birthday. It was a beautiful day and there was great food and fun was had by all. Everyone, that is, except for Damian. He was a fussy-Gus all day long, crying and whining. We couldn’t figure out why but determined it must be because he was missing the Mexico-Iran match.

Damian got his way and we hit the road after 2 and a half hours. This left enough time for me and EdHill to pick up our Tour again; this time to a Porteguese bar in Hartford. We sped over to the Cambrense Cafe which isn’t exactly in the best part of town. But hey, if we survived Nazis on Friday, how bad could a bunch of Portuguese people be?

wc4h.jpgAs it turned out, not bad at all. The Cambrense (This word means something to people from the old country) Cafe is a nice little sports bar that shows all the Portuguese and Brazilian soccer matches on satellite feeds. They serve food, but hell if I could read that menu. We got there at half time with the “good guys” up 1-0 over Angola. Wait… Angola made the finals? Yup, and what’s more, Angola just got its independence from Portugal about 30 years ago. See what you learn with this soccer stuff?

The bar was crowded but actually somewhat subdued. I learned that this was because despite the winning tally, they played like merda and everyone was upset about it. Eh, what the heck. After the game, we mosied up Park Road to O’Porto, an upscale Portuguese restaurant which I highly recommend. Ed and I ordered up some delicious appetizers (squid, shrimp, and clam dishes for me) and called it a day.

On our way out, we talked to the owner who mentioned that today was tough for him because, get this, he was Portuguese, sure… but he was born in Angola! You see people, all you have to do is talk to random people and you learn the coolest things.

The first act of true insanity I’ve seen so far in this World Cup Tour…

wc4b.jpg
…PortuPoodle.

wc4f.jpg
PortuFans

wc4i.jpg
PortuBeer

wc4e.jpg
PortuBar

wc4g.jpg
PortuBikes

wc4j.jpg
And after that weak win, EdHill says, “PortuWhew!”

Continue on to the next games

Leave a Comment

The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism