Sporting Breakthrough

Well, the sun is shining and so I thought I grab a cheeky bottle of Super Bock from the fridge, do a little blogging on the wife's laptop in the garden and enjoy the sunshine while I'm at it. I mean, okay, try to enjoy the sunshine without the interruptions of my youngest wanting to blog too and the lady across the street who is blatantly talking on her mobile to someone in a wind tunnel. That aside though, it's turned out to be a very beautiful afternoon. Except now the keys of the laptop have gotten so hot I can't type. Give me a couple of minutes to relocate to a slightly shadier spot!

Anyway, I really didn't want to blog on and on and on about the weather again, but today does seem to be the breakthrough I've been hoping for. Both the BBC Weather and Weather Online are forecasting 34 degrees later on this week, so I'm hoping that summer is now well and truly on it's way. I'll try and send some of the sunshine over to England too, if only to stop the "draughting it down" jokes on my (other) facebook page.

So, Sporting Breakthrough? Since moving here I've taken up a new interest in 'The Beautiful Game' which I never had in England. The local bar always has the telly tuned into the football in the evenings, so perhaps it was inevitable that I should gain such an interest in the game. There are two Lisbon teams, Benfica and Sporting (for those readers who didn't already know) and the crowd at the local bar seem to be equally split between the two of them. The landlord's allegiance is obvious though, as demonstrated by the proudly displayed Benfica pennant hung up on the wall next to the bar snacks. It will be a very interesting season next year though because our local team, Estoril Praia, have achieved promotion up into the top division and will be playing against the likes of Benfica next year. Definitely something to look forward to.

Sueca - A popular Portuguese card game

Now, to the breakthrough. We'd been watching a match on the telly in the bar over a few beers. I think it must have been a Spanish league match because it finished quite early. (Spanish time is an hour different.) The Landlord switched the channel and another match was about to start, but one that clearly wasn't too important to a group of the locals who promptly found a pack of cards and started playing some sort of card game. Having already had my fill of football, I decided to stand up alongside the other spectators that the card game had attracted and watch that instead. I watched for about half an hour, gradually gleaming nuggets of information that would give insight into how the game was played. It was immediately obvious that it was a bridge-like game played in pairs, with all the cards dealt out equally between the four players. There was also a trump suit, signified by the dealer showing the last card of his hand to the other players before play commenced. I asked the landlord, who was standing next to me also watching the card game, what it was called. Of course my very best Portuguese is still rubbish but apparently good enough for that conversation. The game it turns out is called Sueca. I also learnt the names of the suits and picture cards too that night, but i must have had one too many Super Bocks by that hour because the only ones I can remember are Espadas (Spades) and Valet (Jack). I also managed to deduce that they played with a deck with all the 8's, 9's and 10's removed and that a 7 seemed to beat an Ace. My interest in their game seemed to keep the conversation going and one of the locals tried to explain the scoring system to me, but alas, I didn't understand and resorted to Google the following morning. The conversations between myself,the other two expats and the locals went on in fits and starts for the remainder of the evening. At one point some old bloke was trying to explain something to me about buses to Lisbon, but I'm not sure what. The ice was well and truly broken that night, and another milestone was passed in setting down roots here.

So what with football and cards you'd think I'd had enough sport recently? Nope! Just over a week ago the MotoGP came to the Circuito Estoril and my brother and I, along with a couple of mates had taken the liberty of buying some Grandstand A tickets, overlooking the Finish Line. Motorbike racing is far more in line with my usual sporting affiliations and I was very excited about going. In fact I was so keen that when I found out that my brother's plane didn't land until the Saturday afternoon I asked him to post my ticket over so that I could get in to see the practice sessions on the Friday and the Saturday morning. I can't describe to you how furious I was when it didn't arrive. It still hasn't, but I did read in the Portugal News that some mail from England had been passed to a third party company that was failing to deliver some items of mail to private apartments and houses. So, I bit my lip and went to the circuit on Friday with the hope of acquiring a replacement ticket. It was a vain hope, since I knew that they'd dropped the price of the already cheap tickets to 20 Euro to ensure that they sold out. And my fears were justified; they had indeed ran out of Grandstand A tickets. However, the nice man at the kiosk handily spoke English and was willing to entertain my tale of a defunct postal system and my desire to watch the racing with my brother who was flying in from England especially for the MotoGP. After listening to my sorry story he leaned forward and quietly whispered, "Come round the back." he led me through to the back room and introduced my to a young lady who promptly sold me another Grandstand A ticket! Talk about the biggest Sporting Breakthrough of my life. Bless the two of them! I left the back room with a ticket in my hand, a massive smile on my face, repeating "Muito obrigado!" over and over like a man possessed.

Casey Stoner

So Saturday arrived and my eldest son and I headed off down to the circuit to meet up with a friend and his son for some practice action. I had read that tickets for the standing area were only 2 Euro for the day. Bargain. So we queued and bought 3 standing tickets and walked round to the entrance for the standing area. And quite a walk it was, right around to the back of the track. And quite a walk back for me too, for it seemed that my highly sought after premium Grandstand A ticket was not valid for the standing area! Another 2 Euro later and another hike back to the entrance and finally I was in! It had been a long and tiresome journey, but at last I was in. Of course, knowing now that a Grandstand A ticket was only valid for Grandstand A, I had news to break to my brother when I picked him and our two mates from the airport later that day...

Sunday morning arrived and we headed off in my little car down to the track. It's amazing how a little local knowledge can pay dividends when you're trying to find space to park, and we headed up towards the shopping centre car park. It was perhaps a little cheeky, but I soon got over my scruples. I won't bore you all with a lap by lap run down of the race, after all, if you're really interested you would have either watched on television or read all about it in the sports pages by now. Suffice to say that we thoroughly enjoyed our day in the grandstand overlooking the finish line. We could see the giant screen across the other side of the track too, so it was like watching on telly, but with the added excitement of them coming screaming past periodically. Amazing racing. I did feel sorry for Stoner, Lorenzo and Pedrosa though, because Rossi got a much bigger cheer riding into the pit lane in seventh place than the podium guys did. Next year my brother and I plan to take a trip across the border for the Spanish round before we come back here for the Portuguese one. Rest assured Mr Postman, I'll be buying my tickets here in Portugal.