November 7, 2010

We had a good session of home schooling in the morning before we headed out for today´s main event. Since we were going to share an experience with about 70 000 other people we decided to leave the car at home.

Just next to the bus stop Iseline suddenly shouted that she could see the Washington Memorial for mice. She was so enthusiastic about her find that she made me take a picture of her in front of it:

The bus did not arrive on time and we were getting a bit worried. After speaking to a fellow public transport user we got the impression that time tables were not all that important here. The bus goes every 20 minutes and one will show up eventually. Things seem relaxed here in the south.

At last we managed to work our way to downtown Atlanta. The bus followed Peachtree Street. It is the original and main Peachtree Street Atlanta has been built around. Interestingly enough there are 71 streets in Atlanta with Peachtree in the name. Even though Georgia is the peach state, the name has nothing to do with peach, but is a corrupted form for “pitch tree”.

We met Mike at the bus stop in town and walked over to the Georgia Dome. The boys really wanted to see an American sports event while we were here. Originally we wanted to do baseball, but that did not work out. So, we settled for American Football instead. The weird sport where they spend twice as much time standing around as they do playing (no kidding, a one hour match normally lasts at least three hours), where they very seldom use their feet on the “ball” at all, where they don´t use a ball, but a projectile made from pig skin and where everyone tries to kill the guy who has the pig skin thing.

We had invited Mike to join us, in the hope of having access to an American with a wealth of insight and knowledge about the game. We quickly realized that Mike had never been to a game before and did not know the rules at all. Cool, this would be a new cultural experience for all of us. We warmed up with photos next to a mascot thing outside the stadium:

Georgia Dome is most impressive. It was the largest dome structure in the world until the construction of the  millennium done in London. It has a capacity of over 71 000 people for football games. When I bought tickets I discovered that the NFL has a “blackout” rule saying that if a game is not sold out it will not be televised in the local market. Congress passed legislation forcing them to do this in 1973! Previously there was always a blackout. Some things are very important to politicians. It reminds me of the county council meeting in Norway, many years ago, which was moved so the politicians could watch the TV series “Dallas”

Anyway, Mike wanted us all to get the real Amercian football experience, so we acquired some hot dogs, fries and beer:

Since our plan of consulting our American expert did not work out we once again turned to my iPhone´s copy of Wikipedia. I knew some of the rules already and the kids and I quickly got into the game. It was actually fun to watch and we soon roared and booed with the local fans. At one point I asked Mike if he understood why the ball had just been kicked over to the other team. He responded that he hadn´t even noticed the ball being kicked, since he was studying the engineering behind the structure of the stadium. My kind of guy.

In the break between the second and third quarter a giant peanut entered the field. It was the final of the Mr. Planter college scholarship competition. I believe there were 4 contestants with parents. The parents had to wear a huge oversized black plastic hat with a big hole in it. The kids then had 60 seconds to throw, at a distance, small bags of peanuts into the hats, The kid who hit with most peanut bags got a scholarship.

Hopeful kid who wants to go to college hardly visible to the right in the center of the photo. Heartbreaking missed college opportunities can be seen on the ground around the parent with the funny hat.

Supersized check being prepared for handover. The winning kid not even visible on this one.

It was completely bizarre. What a way of handing out scholarships! If this is the way the US selects who gets to go to college the future look bleak indeed for the old superpower. 🙂

The noise level during the game was completely out of this world. I regretted deeply that we had not brought ear plugs. It seemed that the only way to cheer on your team was to make as many decibels as possible. No singing, no standing up (even though the guy on the speakers told people to get up, they never did), no yelling names or slogans, no doing the wave. Just uncontrolled, full volume, screaming of the monotonous kind. It seemed the accoustics of the stadium had been fine-tuned to amplify this type of screaming in order to maximize eardrum damage during matches. I got out my iPhone and ran the decibel meter application. It maxed out at 105. I´m sure the noise level was much higher.

The game turned out to be a thriller. The Atlanta Falcons were in the lead from the first touchdown, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came very close to winning. They were at 4th down and one on the one with a score of 27 to 21 with 2 minutes left of the 4th quarter (told you we figured out the rules). The Falcons managed to stop their attempt and the stadium errupted in even more monotonous screaming than before.

Just as we thought we had mastered all aspects of the game it suddenly ended with a minute left on the game clock. Confused, and realizing we might not be experts yet, we left the stadium with a sense of having taken part in a very special clan ritual. It had been an interesting anthropological afternoon.

We had a drink at a hotel bar before we headed home. At the bar Iseline wanted me to listen to some music on her iPod:

It was techno music from my old “Ultra Techno” CD. She knew I would like it and she sure knows how to make a father´s heart melt.

Eirik

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