Or the trumpet, to be more exact. A coworker offered free 
tickets to a New York Red Bulls Soccer match a few months back and I snagged a few. Unfortunately, we arrived too late for the tailgate, fortunately, the whole game in our rowdy section was a bit of a tailgate. This hard-core section of soccer fans (called Empire Supporters Club or "Empire") consisted of a mix of relocated and second and third generation European and South American soccer fanatics joining together to watch some football. The real football. The action-packed match began with a shower of red streamers and balloons from our section. Regular, more well-behaved soccer fans have regulated the Empire Club to the top section of Giant's Stadium, roped off on both sides by wide section closers in between to ensure a safe distance between themselves and these shananagans. While tamer fans watched on with their families as the Red Bull kicked off and the match began against the Columbus Crew (booooooooo), Empire fans began what would become an endless stream of songs and taunts in English and Spanish accompanied by a large ceremonial drum. Highlights included "Soooooooy de Red Bull, Soooooooy de Red Bull, Soooooooy de Red Bull, De Red Buuuuuull Soy Yooooo" and "We All Hate the Yellow Soccer Team" to the tune of "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine". And then it happened. The Red Bull scored. The wave of uncontainable celebration and cheering was quickly smothered in a big black tarp like sheeting. Had we gone too far? Was this crowd control? Heaven's no. This was simply the GIGANTIC stadium section sized Red Blue banner Empire pulls out when the Red Bull score. Older fans of the team often call the Red Bull the Metro still from their old name Star Metro. They have their old shirts and scarves from when they supported the team way back in 1999. One man next to us who was wearing a Metro scarf told us his secretary had bought it online for him a a present. He assured us, they were highly coveted among the Empire crowd. This more traditional name is easily insertable into all of the songs as both names have two syllables. It was quite a game. We beat the Crew, and then went on to lose to them in the championship game later this year.
We have finally put up the wall hangings in our "living room" (aka our only room) and so aside from the coffee table - it's done! (Redoing the coffee table in a Moomins theme is in the works.) It took me a while to pick a fabric, but this new Marimekko print won me over. For those of you who have yet to visit, also in this photo is our lovely couch and bright yellow bird pillows (a big thank you to Silvia for those!) and our Anthropologie rug that we picked up on Craigslist. Joey and Kevin hauled it home in a deluge (another big thank you to Kevin for helping with that and for somehow talking a cab driver into letting it into his cab). So anyway, here are a few photos of what the apartment is starting to look like. More to come as the projects get finished!
This weekend a few of Joey's friends were in town and decided to take a bike ride up the Hudson. The whole escapade ended up being about 18 miles round trip. Less than 1/4 mile into it I crashed into the curb and flipped over my bike. Lucky for me I ended up in a flower bed so I was saved by a very mulchey landing- not so luckily it was a rose bed so I did get a few scratches (see the war wound photo below). Having gotten the inevitable fall over with, I completed the rest of the trip with (relatively) little incident. Over all it was a beautiful ride and I am now seriously considering getting a bike sometime in the future so that I can make it a regular pass time. This time I rented one at the 42nd Street Boardwalk. I was originally nervous about the idea of riding a bike in the city, but all along the Hudson there is a nice wide bike path completely separate from the highway. It is a beautiful trip along some of the nicest parks and skyline views of the city. We went all the way up to the George Washington bridge (up the purple line on the map) and over into New Jersey (first time I've been there) and then rode back to Harlem for some barbeque (red star on the map) and then back down to 42nd Street. We left the restaurant at a pretty fast pace to get the bikes back by their 7:45 due date before they turned back into pumpkins. We clocked the last 5 miles in about 20 minutes. Those of you who cycle out there probably laugh at that stat but for a non-cyclist with a full belly of bbq, that's not half bad.
View looking South towards Manhattan on the George Washington Bridge and the bridge itself
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