the other night we went to a riot.





oh my mistake, it was just a lyon futbol game. the fans kept lighting flares in the stands and throwing them on to the field. other noticeable differences between european sporting events and american ones: very little merchandise besides jerseys and scarves (no pink jerseys thank goodness!),they whistle instead of boo, very few people eat at the game,everyone smokes a cigarette during half time inside the stadium, and no one left before the game was over.






the hotel we're staying at is the sponsor so the team was staying here. people were lined up to see the team get on the bus.

at first i wasn't sure if i wanted to go because the tickets were 36euro and most of my memories of soccer revolve around me tripping over my own foot, but i decided to at least go to the stadium and soak up some second-hand hype. A few of us who didn't have tickets asked some sketchy scalpers but they wouldn't dip below 25euro, and they kept shouting something about us being americans between them so we were a little nervous about the authenticity of their tickets. Then some random dude came up to us and asked if we wanted free tickets. he gave us two and there were five of us so we bought three at the gate for 30euro and split the cost five ways. so for all of you a little slow on the math, we payed 18euro( for anyone really slow that means we paid half of what the rest of our group payed)



i was one of the lucky two who got one of the seats the guys gave us for free. they were 21 rows back from the field. it was amazing! one of the goals was scored right infront of us.


lyon won woo!