During the summer of 2004 my soccer team and I went to the Czech Republic and Amsterdam for two different soccer tournaments. We had a layover in Amsterdam for about two hours then continued onto the Czech Republic.
While we were waiting in Amsterdam we knew that the legal drinking age was 18 so even though we were only 16 we went into a bar at the airport and tried to get a few beers but they said that they needed to see our id’s so we left.
After we were depressed for a little while someone mentioned that we could go to the duty free store and buy some beer there. When we walked into the store we immediately went to the alcohol section but we had a very tough time choosing which type of beer to buy. After we decided that it would be a very good decision to buy the cheapest and save our money, we bought Heineken.
By the time we got back to our gate the plane was ready for us to get on so we did not have a chance to drink our beer. After the plane had taken off we cracked out our beers and drank them, and then we got told by the flight attendant that we were not allowed to drink our own alcohol on the plane and that if we wanted to drink we had to buy it from them.
After landing in Prague we had to take a very long bus ride to the city of Ceske Budejovice. During the week that my team and I spent there we did a lot of sightseeing and soccer playing. Throughout the Czech Republic tournament we went undefeated against teams from Italy, Holland, Poland, Sweden, and Finland. During one of the final games in the Czech tournament, we were beating an Italian team pretty badly, and the ref was calling the game perfectly, but since they were Italian they started to complain, and complain and then they spit in our goalies face. When the game was finally over because they had received too many red cards to continue playing they got really mad and circle the ref and were all yelling at him. After we had taken our victory lap, just to rub it in, we went over and made a wall around the ref to protect him. Even thought very few punches were thrown, we had a good time. This is also just one of the many things that have contributed to my dislike of Italians.
One night while we were there my whole team was very intoxicated and we were staying in dorm rooms. There were two people to each room and we were connected to another room and we shared a bathroom. Well anyway, this one night after each of our roommates had passed out, Jasper, a kid on my team, and I were up talking in my room when we heard his roommate get up. We called to him to ask him what he was doing and he said he was going to the bathroom. When we went and looked in the bathroom he wasn’t there, so I went and looked in the shower just in case, and he wasn’t their either, but when I looked into his room I saw him, he was standing in the corner of his room over his roommates suitcase going to the bathroom all over his stuff. Jasper was very upset when he noticed what was going on and he started yelling at Kolya. Kolya was so drunk that he didn’t know what was going on so he just went and passed out in my bed thinking it was his.
After Kolya went to bed Jasper started washing out his clothes in the shower and he even had to put his suitcase in the shower because it was dripping with urine. The next morning when Kolya woke up and Jasper told him about what happened he couldn’t believe that he had done this and he said that it had never happened before and he offered to take his clothes down to the laundry and wash them for him but Japer told him that he had already washed them in the shower.
The rest of my soccer trip to Europe had many stories that involved people being drunk and funny or bad things happening. All in all, I would say that my soccer trip was a lot of fun. In Amsterdam, we played many different teams, and the teams here were much better than those in the Czech. One team we played from the Netherlands was so good, that every player on their team including the back-up goalie had a contract with a pro European team. We ended up losing to this team 4-0 which I do not consider to be that bad. In the end, my team won the Challengers Cup and we also became very good friends with a team from Sweden. We do not talk to them now, but I still think about them and their team every time I open my closet, because we traded jerseys with them.
The time I spent in Europe with my soccer team was a very special time. We did a lot of team bonding, a lot of team fighting, and had a lot of fun. I would do this trip again in a heartbeat if the opportunity arose, no questions asked. Did you know that Italians shave each others legs, and that they sleep in the same sleeping bag? Or did you know that in the Czech Republic they have air fresheners in the check out line at the grocery store, that have naked girls on them. These were just a few of the very important things I learned on my soccer trip to Europe.
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