Oscar is up at 7:20am saying, “Mommy, we have a soccer game”.
We don’t have the alarm going off until 8:30 to make our 10:07 train, but someone is too excited. We are up and ready to go waaaaayyy before our train comes and we start walking to the station in order to dampen Oscar’s anxiety that we’re going to miss anything. Because I bought the tickets the other night, we can’t get on an earlier train, but he’s happy watching trains come and go at York station. The wind is wicked and it’s supposed to get
worse as Winter storm Jorge comes through this afternoon. We have a pleasant train trip to Newcastle with Oscar asking every stop if it’s ours, but we’re the end of the line. We get off and start off on foot to the stadium in order to find a place to have lunch. We find some
charity shops and get gloves for John, a hat for me, and sand tray figures for the first time on this trip. I see a pharmacy and we need more vitamins in order to all stay healthy with all of this rain, cold and travelling with close contact with others.
We have antibacterial wipes, gel and now vitamins. We find a nice place to have lunch and stay warm, then head off to the arena. On the way, we find the Grey Monument, more evidence that John’s family is probably from here….there’s a protest going on and police there, so we head away pretty quick with me telling Oscar how it’s a citizen’s civic duty to protest their government doing something wrong….again, learning new
things on this trip that are probably not appropriate. We get to the arena and Oscar and I go in the shop while John picks up our tickets. Oscar gets a new hat from Newcastle and what’s amazing about this day is it is sunny and nice. We can’t believe it and we know
that it’s going to get worse, but our seats in the stadium are covered and in a corner of the stadium so the wind doesn’t even get to us. You can feel it getting colder, but the day is beautiful and the game looks great on this green field below us. We're next to the Burnley
hoard who are cordoned
off with rope and police so that there can’t be any fighting between the club
supporters. I don’t like soccer, but I
have to give it this, it’s over in 100 minutes no matter what. There’s something amazing in that for an American
when all of our sports run longer and longer and longer all the time. There are no replays and 3 yellow cards that
we get to see. No goals though, the game
is a draw at the end of the regulation and it’s amazing how this huge stadium
fills up and empties. You don’t have to
go down the stairs looking down at the pitch below you and feel like you might
fall, you go out to the concourse and walk down staircases that put you out on
the street. The wind has picked up and
is blowing stuff in your eyes, but it’s still not raining and we are grateful for
that. We head back to the shopping area
that we came through before and find a taco place to eat at and warm up
in. We find some amazing barbacoa street
tacos at Tortilla in Eldon Square and Oscar even has a cheese taco that he says
is good, but not as good as his at school.
When we finally head out, it’s finally started to rain, but we come to
the train station in good time, sit and have a coffee, hang out and watch the
trains. If I were a true European, I
would have waited to see when we got to the station and bought our tickets for
the next train, but I thought that trains in and out of Newcastle would be at a
premium on game day. It just means that
there are a lot of drunk people on our train.
And every other train. There’s no
drinking in the stands, but that just means that they pound alcohol while on
the concourse and get drunk to a degree that seems like they should be
hospitalized…..not sure that I feel it’s best.
But no one is getting in a car and driving home which is a plus….there
was no parking at the arena except for the players and coaches….all in all, a
big check on John’s bucket list, Oscar is over the moon after seeing it, and I
wasn’t cold or wet throughout the whole thing, so I’m happy too.
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