Icelandic Football / Soccer

With all three boys away at camp, we took our first vacation without kids since The Moose was only a few months old. He’s starting high school in two weeks. And even that vacation wasn’t really a vacation. I was a groomsman in my friend’s wedding, so while we had a great time, it wasn’t actually a vacation. So with the kids away and to celebrate our 20th anniversary a year late, we went to Iceland.

As you might be able to tell by the title, this post is not about the beautiful natural wonders of Iceland and our experiences traveling around the country. That will come in a future post. This is about football in Iceland which I will now refer to as soccer for the rest of the post. Sorry to anyone in Iceland reading this who prefer football to soccer. For non-sports fans, please don't click away yet. You might find this interesting. Seriously. There's Icelandic music here too!

After flying overnight, we arrived in Iceland and essentially went straight to the Blue Lagoon. Is this geothermal spa an overpriced tourist destination? Yes. Was it worth spending the money for several hours in warm, remarkably blue water? Also yes. 

From the Blue Lagoon, we checked into the hotel and took a nap. I woke up and decided to walk around the neighborhood, and almost immediately after leaving the hotel, heard crowd noise and followed the sound. What I discovered was a soccer field with hundreds of kids in the stands and a stage in the middle of the field. It turned out to be the opening ceremonies for the annual Rey Cup youth soccer tournament. There were club teams from throughout Iceland as well as Germany, the UK, Faroe Islands, and several from the United States. The opening ceremonies included a performance from Icelandic hip-hop artist Herra Hnetusmjor. 

Shifting away from soccer momentarily, I really enjoyed listening to Icelandic radio. The pop stations played a mixture of songs from musicians you would hear on any American station (Ed Sheeran, Alex Warren, Dua Lipa) as well as songs in Icelandic, and others songs in English I was unfamiliar with likely by British artists. What made it even better was I couldn't understand anything said by the DJs. Sample dialogue in Icelandic:

Something, something, something (that I couldn't understand) Natalie Imbruglia Torn. Something, something, something...

The Weather Girls It's Raining Men something, something, something...

There were two songs in Icelandic that I heard several times that I liked, so I tried to figure out the title and artist. I ended up going on a deep dive of the Icelandic Billboard chart and listening to Icelandic songs on YouTube. Justin Bieber has a new album with several songs on the chart. Our friend Herra Hnetusmjor had a song in the top 5 that had previously reached #1. Pretty cool that someone with a #1 hit played the opening ceremonies of a youth soccer tournament. I couldn't find either song I liked on the Billboard chart, but while heading to the airport, one of the two songs played on the radio, and I was able to figure out it was this:

No clue what the lyrics mean, but I like the sound. Oh, there was no editing of English song lyrics on the radio. You clearly hear Sabrina Carpenter singing swear words that do not make American radio.

Back to soccer, the opening ceremonies were right next to Iceland's national stadium. While I wasn't able to go inside, I walked around the gates. The stadium is nice, but it's also much smaller than what I think a national stadium looks like. It's not Wembley in England or Azteca in Mexico. It seems like there is a seating capacity of 9,500 which would be less than my high school football stadium, The Wolvarena.

We left Reykjavik for several days to tour the south coast of Iceland, but I knew we would have time on Sunday evening when we returned. After discovering that the National Theatre of Iceland was near the hotel, I started looking into potential shows to see and got very excited at the potential of seeing Frozen, I mean, Frost.

If I'm going to see a show where I don't understand the language, at least this is one where I know the story. Although I never did figure out the theatre's website, it seems like the show already happened and was on the website as part of the season schedule. The other option was going to a professional Icelandic soccer match. And again, it was difficult to get information. I finally figured out that Valur Rejkavik, the top team in the Besta delid karla (or Men's Best Division) had a home match about a 10-minute drive from the hotel against FH. In case you're wondering, FH is short for Fimleikafélag Hafnarfjarðar. Since that's impossible to pronounce, I'm now referring to FH as the Fire Horses.

I struggled to find information about the game online, so I emailed the team twice to ask questions about how to buy tickets and where to park. I also commented on Valur's Instagram and Facebook posts to try to get this information. I received no responses to the emails or comments. Finally, a few hours before the match, one Valur fan sent me a message letting me know that I had to buy tickets via an app. This was extremely helpful.

About 30 minutes before the game, we arrived at the stadium and found parking to be extremely easy. There was only one entrance (which looks like the entrance to an apartment building) with no one in the ticket booth and one person watching people scan tickets to enter, or taking Icelandic krona from the few people who didn't have tickets electronically. We got tickets through the app's website and scanned my phone to get in.

I am clearly used to going to American professional sports venues. This felt more like attending a high school game. There were no assigned seats and only one of the four sides had stands. There were a few places to buy refreshment and one booth sold a limited amount of merchandise, but you come to Hlíðarendi (that's the stadium name) to watch soccer. Well, or basketball or handball since there's a large indoor court connected to the field. There's no pregame activities or halftime show. It's a soccer match. According to Wikipedia, the stadium holds 2,465 people including 1,201 in seats. I have no idea where the remaining 1,264 people would stand. I included several pictures and videos below so that you can see the stadium for yourself.

This picture makes me laugh. The kids were getting soaked by the sprinkler system. Plus, the boys wore Pepsi shirts, and Coca-Cola is clearly a stadium sponsor. Don't think placement of both Pepsi and Coke would happen at an American stadium.

Aron is on the Valur, but A-A-ron is not.

 

As for the game, Valur won 3-1. These are the highlights though without sound:

I really enjoyed going to the game. If you talk to anyone who visited Iceland, they probably went to the Blue Lagoon and stopped along the Golden Circle (again, future post). My guess is that I'm the only one who went to a Besta delid karla match!

Oh, the waffle (or vofflur in Icelandic) with cream and rhubarb jam was delicious! 

Mountain Man

For several years if not longer, I’ve passed this billboard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike:

I’m extremely excited that I finally got this picture. Credit to my brother for playing a photographer on the internet! I’ve often wondered about the Mountain Man character. Is he supposed to be like McGruff the Crime Dog, Gus the groundhog for the Pennsylvania lottery, or my favorite short-lived character G-Hog for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor?

I searched for the Pennsylvania Dairy Promotion Program, and the website is all about the Dairy Princesses. The cold (milkshakes) never bothered them anyway! So was or is Mountain Man ever used in any campaign other than billboards around Pennsylvania? More importantly, is DJ Khaled getting any royalties for the resemblance?

How I Injured Myself At Frozen 2

Before I begin this post, I want to share some alternate titles. I Barely Survived Frozen 2. Or How Seeing Frozen 2 Almost Ended My Life. (Thanks to Chris for this one.) On to the post.

Thanksgiving. A time to come together with family and/or friends and eat lots and lots and lots of wonderful food. The day after Thanksgiving: well, the leftovers are good. Otherwise, um, I guess it's a positive that I didn't see any videos this year of people fighting or rioting at Walmart! Let's start with how my Black Friday began. The Moose and my niece (both 8) woke up sometime very early. They say that it was at 4:00, but it might have been 5:00 or 6:00. Regardless of the time, it was still dark outside, and they thought it would be a brilliant idea to wake up Pedro Tulo and my nephew (both 5). Hilarity ensued! Except that it didn’t. Naturally, all of the screaming woke up everyone including two-year old Luigi. So at just around 6:00, all five kids were awake. Fantastic way start to the day.

Oh, but there’s more. Luigi had too much milk too fast and proceeded to throw up all over me. This is still before 6:30. While Luigi was fine and the kids all settled down with some television and donuts, we decided to take a trip to the movies. I mean, what’s a better way to spend Black Friday than with five kids (along with a theater full of other kids) at Frozen 2?

We arrived at the theater 20-30 minutes before the scheduled start time to get seats. There were no movie star scrambles for celebrities like Otm Shank.



Instead, the kids devoured the popcorn before the previews began, and maybe 2 minutes into the film, Luigi got restless. And by restless, I mean that he started to cry. I quickly took him out of the theater, and after he calmed down a few minutes later, went back inside. While walking up the stairs to our seats, I tripped while holding him. He was a little shaken up but fine. Meanwhile, I banged my left knee into the floor or stairs. Apparently, I shouldn’t carry my kids up or down stairs. It wasn’t too bad at the time, probably because I was too embarrassed about tripping in public.

I limped around a little for a few hours, and then drove home. My knee must have tightened up during the drive, so throughout Friday and much of Saturday, going up and down stairs hurt. I couldn't seem to put much weight on my left leg when alternating stairs. It was okay if I put one foot on one step and the other foot on the same step. Alternating steps (like how a normal person goes up or down steps) hurt.

I’m blaming Josh Gad. No not Josh Gad being the voice of Olaf, Josh Gad himself.

A few quick spoilers from Frozen 2. How does Elsa just let Anna become ruler of Arendelle? Is there no democracy there? So much nepotism.

Elsa is a bad influence for kids. I’m not talking about her strength and independence or about how she tries to help others (in this movie, not the first Frozen where she runs away and abandons everyone, but it’s okay since she “let it go”). No, Elsa travels to really cold places but apparently doesn’t feel the need to wear a coat, gloves, or hat despite exposing her shoulders. I’m sure that there are countless parents battling their kids about wearing a coat in cold temperatures. The kids are probably refusing to wear coats, citing Elsa for not wearing one in the Frozen movies, and then replying, “the cold never bothered me anyway.”

Hot take. The songs in Moana are so much better than the songs in Frozen. And I’ve already forgotten the songs in Frozen 2.

Back to me, my left knee felt better on Sunday, but my right foot has bothered me on and off for the last week or so. I'm a mess!