But, the reason I did not find the time to write anything in the evening was because I spent the majority of the day in downtown Indy on Mass. Ave. watching the USA v Belgium World Cup Round of 16 Match.
First, here is a picture of what things looked like two hours before kick off...
Yeah, even that early, we were pretty deep into the crowd and it only kept getting worse. By the time the match started, things looked a little more like this...
So, we got downtown about 1:30pm, made our way to Mass Ave, parked our chairs in the middle of the street, had a few beers, and got to know our new neighbors that we would spend the next few hours cheering with. We got to watch the end of the Argentina v Switzerland match, which was a wonderful nil-nil draw that went into extra time, and honestly was hoping to see it go into a PK shoot out, but alas Argentina wasn't too keen on that idea. Which doesn't disappoint me, I really think Leo Messi is the greatest player in the world, and I'm happy to see them move on, despite the fact that they eliminated Xherdan Shaqiri - who plays for Bayern Munich.
We then had some time to kill, which was filled by putting all of our chairs into a nice circle and just hanging out, while also having a few friends stop by on their way to meet up with other people. It was a very nice and friendly vibe all around, I didn't see anyone out of control or angry or any fights of any kind. All of the people around us were just really personable and friendly and we all had a really good time and experience. I really enjoy communal situations like that, and was so happy that things went so smoothly.
It was a sad end to the US run in this World Cup. I felt like they played really good during regular time, and then I don't know what happened - perhaps heat exhaustion - during the extra time, but it was pretty disappointing. The first goal was legit, but I feel like the second one should not have gone in, and that would have been a nice goal to tie by Julian Green. As much I want to place blame on Jürgen Klinsmann, I don't think he did a whole wrong in the match from a coaching standpoint. Although perhaps some of his choices for the defense could be called into question. I think whatever gaps the US had fixed in their back line after Germany, seemed to fall apart. If you want to see a nice collection of all 16 saves that Tim Howard did make, here's a good video...
Post match, a few of us did our best to help clean up the street, because it was pretty trashed.
All in all, it was an extremely long day and I was just beyond exhausted by the time I got home, and was dealing with the humility of the fact that I have some seriously ridiculous tan lines on my face and my arms. I'm not sure how I didn't process the fact that spending seven hours outside in the sun was going to have serious repercussions on my skin? Luckily, I did have a good enough base of color, that I'm not terribly burnt aside from my head. My arms just look funny.
So, there we have it. That's my story about the lack of writing anything yesterday.
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