Hup Holland Hup: The week I became a Sports Fan...

It's another summer in Amsterdam, another opportunity to drink good beer, eat excellent cheese and hop/skip around Europe visiting places yet unseen and/or possibly revisit old favorites. Yet, here I am 3 weeks into the summer and I have only partaken of 2 out of 3. I have yet to leave Holland.  The reason for this unimaginable lapse: La Copa Mundial aka the World Cup aka that big ass game that took place in South Africa and permanently embedded Waka Waka into my brain.

By the time we arrived in the Netherlands, the men in orange had already qualified for the Quarter Finals against Brazil. My Dutch friends and acquaintances were justly proud and were near universal in their resigned acceptance that they was going to get crushed by Brazil. No other outcomes were seriously entertained. As a result, I got my first lesson in football. Apparently, Brazil ees berry, berry good.
Then, a strange thing happened. We gathered sometime around the 2nd half (lesson #2: There are no quarters in football and people will not respond favorably when you ask them what quarter it is) to watch the game in the Rembrandtsplein. Shitting on all expectations, the Netherlands won 2-1 and the result was madness. There were grown men crying, vuvuzelas blaring and the city magically transformed itself into the most orange place on Earth.

Next up was the semi-final against Uruguay. I had some days off, time when I would normally hop aboard a bus, train or plane, but in a twist of fate more unlikely than the Netherlands beating Brazil, I was really getting getting excited about the game. Me, an avowed non-sports fan was doing what all Miamians do best, I was jumping onto the bandwagon, big time. I purchased an orange shirt, donned a hat hard with a built in wimpy vuvuzela-wannabe and joined an estimated 80,000 fans on the Museumplein to watch what was certain to be the inevitable defeat of the Dutch team.

We spent the hours prior to the game leisurely enjoying a picnic and bopping along to the same 4-5 songs being blasted through the loudspeakers, over and over and over again. It got the point we could easily sing along to the Dutch tunes without the pesky matter of total non-comprehension daunting us. One friend ended up getting interviewed by both CNN Español and Al Jazeera. We scored inflatable orange crowns. Life was good.

Once the game began, the park was standing room only and the city suddenly inherited a wealth of trampled picnic blankets. Each time the Dutch scored, something they did 3 times, there were flares and streamers and flying beer cans. And lots of hugging, some of which was probably just people hanging on to each other to avoid falling and being trampled by the surging crowds. Uruguay only managed to score 2 goals and the city descended yet deeper into madness. Against all expectations, the Dutch had won again. Many hours later, there were still people screaming and vuvuzela-ing in the streets. I know because I was one of those people. The next morning, I sounded like a cross between Rod Stewart and an off-key frog.

This brought us to the final game of 2010 World Cup. I had yet another 3 days off and ideas about flying to Stockholm, but there was no chance in Hell, with everyone clamoring to come to Amsterdam, I was going to be the one dumb-ass heading in the wrong direction. People were finally coming to the realization that the Dutch might actually win this thing. Sweden could wait!

Fearing the mass of humanity that was probably camped out days ahead of time at the Museumplein, we opted for a bar in the Rembrandtplein, the same one where we had watched the defeat of the mighty Brazilians (call me superstitious), and camped there instead. For hours, we watched the masses cheering throughout the streets in anticipation. Some were decidedly more enthusiastic than others.

But most were just the right combination of excited and intoxicated. I have been in Amsterdam for the biggest festival of the year, Queen's Day, and I can say that the Queen and her day have nothing on a World Cup final. This was the party to end all orange parties.

The bar was shoulder to shoulder, beer mug to beer mug during the game. Now, a veritable expert on all things football (except for, say, the names, the strategies or most of the rules), I screamed with abandon every time that it looked like the Netherlands was going to score. We all did this throughout the game and I eventually expanded my knowledge to the overtime system employed to break a tie. Lesson #3: It's long, a third as a long as the game itself.

Lesson #4 followed shortly thereafter: There is no better way to ruin a good party than to lose a World Cup. Spain scored in overtime and the city went silent. To the credit of the Dutch people, the group of Spaniards rejoicing in the bar were not pelted with moldy cheese and were allowed to celebrate undisturbed. We all wandered the streets in drunken shock, before settling on the balcony of a friend's apartment. Their neighbor was busy stoking a small fire pit, burning what appeared to be newspaper articles, but as someone pointed out, could be more accurately described as his hopes and dreams.

It felt like a bad time to have become a sport's fan.  The following day, I mentioned this to a German friend with whom I had watched my first World Cup game the prior month in Leipzig.  He pointed out that the two teams I had rooted for, Germany and the Netherlands had ended up in 2nd and 3rd place. Lesson #5: Apparently, this is very good.  So, bring on World Cup 2016!! Even if it means staying put in one city, I'm ready to resume the party!