Life as Usual

I think its safe to say we have successfully settled into life in NYC. We get up every morning and go to work, come home every night to cook dinner, relax, and head to bed. For living in such a neat place, we lead rather unexciting lives.

The weekends are where we really get to have our fun... unfortunately, we have only spent 2 weekends in the city since we moved in! Ridiculous. We have been all over the place... Newport, RI/Nantucket, Elberon, Elberon again, and we're leaving to visit my family in Connecticut in about 6 hours. Busy busy!

The time we've had in the city has been, at least, awesome. One free weekend we explored Ground Zero, which I posted about earlier... So incredible. The other weekend we headed out to New Rutherford, NJ to watch the New York Red Bull. That particular weekend they were playing the LA Galaxy, and for you non-soccer folk, thats where David Beckham plays. Unbelieveable, I tell you. First, the lower level of Giants Stadium was filled to the brim... for a soccer game! I almost cried :) Here are some pictures!

The Stadium on the way in

Warmups. I was so excited when I sat down with my game phamplet - I opened up to the Galaxy roster and there were 4 players from AZ! And, I know them all - fantastic much? One, Greg Vanney, is the founder of a club in AZ that I played for. Alan Gordon is a kid from Gilbert, I worked with his sister for a while. The other two, Brandon McDonald and Michael Gavin, played for Sereno with me - they are the same age and played on the boys side. The best is that Michael dated a girl on my team for the longest time, so I remember him as the kid who gave her hickeys! Now he's playing pro soccer with David Beckham... not bad.

Beckham didn't warm up with the team for the whole time - I imagine he'd just be a big distraction. When he finally came out on the field, Jesus Christ the place got nuts. Everyone was trying to snap pictures or screaming or both.

The game, finally, got underway. It was an incredible game - great goals both ways, and Becks made some fantastic plays. Its so funny to watch him on the field - he is literally light years away from anyone else there. Its so easy for us to think in the US that our soccer is getting better - until you put someone like David Beckham on the field and you realize that we still pretty much suck.

View of the packed house - last year (shortly after Beckham signed) the entire 70,000 person stadium was sold out. Can you imagine? (Please excuse the strange Asian man)

I don't think thats a half-bad way to spend a Saturday night - especially for me :) But the game was really great, D got really into it at the end - he's a sucker for sports, even soccer! Hopefully we'll make it back to a game before the season wraps up. Living in a city with pro soccer is new, and I think I like it!