I was watching the Ravens-Patriots game (now last season), and the link I found online was run by some channel called Sky Sports from the UK (completely not not illegal). Now I don’t have a problem with the UK showing NFL games on the telly, but I was really disappointed at the cast they had commentating. There was an English guy, a Canadian fellow, and a hack American football player (this guy named Moore that was a tight end for the Browns for a couple of seasons) commentating on the game. I mean, what the hell is a Hamilton Tiger-Cat anyway? “The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats.”1 That’s what a Hamilton Tiger-Cat is.
The reason people that don't live in America call the sport American football is because it's American (it’s definitely not because the rest of the world calls football what Americans call soccer). I don't know what these Canadians and Brits are doing in a studio talking about football. The only good English football player I know of is Osi Umenyiora, and the best Canadian player in the league is probably Shaun Suisham and he's a kicker. I guess Canada does at least have that going for them because they have had a few good kickers and punters in the league over the years.
With that said, I’m pretty pumped about the upcoming season. Just don’t expect me to watch any streams of the games that are from Sky Sports because British or Canadian accents are not something that I wish to start associating with football.
You may have realized that the title mentioned something about Christmas. That’s because I wrote this back in January. There is a good reason I waited until this exact moment to post this, but I’ll let you fully consider that matter on your own time. Right now I don’t care to delve into that subject with you.
I will tell you the Macedonian word of the blog though. Christmas is a big holiday here. It is celebrated very differently than in the states. There is no exchanging of gifts or singing of Christmas carols. But families do gather together to break some bread (literally) and enjoy each other's company. The Macedonian word of the blog is:
Божиќ (boszik) - Christmas
I really gotta stop using ж in the words I choose.
There is one Christmas story that I want to share with you all. Here it is.
First of all, merry Christmas to everybody who I may have missed saying that to back in December. There is this person who shall remain nameless (because I don’t know this individuals name) existing in Kratovo that has a very rudimentary understanding of the Christmas tree. In all actuality, I’m sure that there are many individuals in Kratovo that share this basic comprehension of the Christmas tree, but there is only one person that I would like to call out on it.
Christmas trees simply do not belong on the roof of a vehicle. Not once, not thrice, but on two separate occasions I saw this. The first time I happened to witness this outlandish act, I was under the false impression that the tree was being transported home and it just happened to be decorated already. The second time, however, I was not so foolish. It was very apparent to me that the roof of the car is where this tree was intended to stand.
I was waiting at the bus stop on a blustery December afternoon, and I must have seen this car drive idly by at least three times while I was there. Kratovo has one main road that basically does a lap around the center of town, and it is my genuine belief that this individual was on an excursion around town solely to exhibit the captivatingly placed Christmas tree atop their vehicle.
That’s not the only weird thing you’d see around Kratovo though if you stuck around throughout the holiday season. The same people that think you will get sick if you go outside with wet hair after a shower, sit in a cold room with a t-shirt on instead of a sweater, not wear socks around the house, be in a place with 2 windows open or a window and a door open, drink a cold beer in the winter…sorry I started to get a little carried away there. Anyway, the same people that believe those things are the people that are perfectly fine with practicing the age old tradition of jumping into freezing cold water in the heart of winter to get a cross and win a television, a nice chunk of change, and bragging rights for the year. Plus, it is symbolic of Jesus being baptized.
I’ve never seen any religious practice carried out quite like this one. It goes down at many different locations (pools, rivers, lakes) on January 19th all around the country, and I’ve had the privilege of watching it in Kratovo the last two years. This most recent winter was quite frigid here in Macedonia so prior to the participants recklessly leaping into the town pool, inches of ice had to be ferociously chipped away to make space for this event to go down. What the funk!
On a more pleasant note, possibly one of the best practices of the wintertime is eating pastrmajlija. That thing I wrote about in my second post. Having pastrmajlija and gazoza (a "carbonated aromatised refreshing non-alcoholic drink with a pear aroma."2 I had to look that up because I wasn't sure how to describe it.) early on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is equivalent to Americans getting a few pizzas delivered and enjoying them at home with some coke (the cola kind, not cocaine. Unless you’re into that kind of thing, in which case...never mind.) and a movie.
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| That's what your average pastrmajlija looks like |
That’s pretty much all I have to say about wintertime activities here.
I suppose I'll wrap this up with the English word that my host mom knows. There was a period where I spoke mostly English at home, and I was really surprised and pleased that we could actually have conversations with each other like that. She may not be able to say a great deal in English, but she can definitely understand a lot. Even now we still greet each other in English sometimes. Well, mostly I do that but she can. She'll say, "Hello. How are you?" And if I ask her, she can respond with "good" or "bad." She may know more English than I know Macedonian now.
Stay classy world.
Works Cited
1. "Hamilton Tiger-Cats." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
2. "Gazoza." Prilepska Pivarnica. Prilepska Pivarnica. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.
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