Saturday Night Football with beer and burgers.
Can’t get any more American, right?
San Francisco 49ers met the Oakland Raiders last Saturday, August 22 (the 3rd day of my USA trip with travel & poker buddy Jorrit).
This classic derby is better known as the Battle of the Bay. Even though it’s just a preseason game, the fans definitely showed loud and clear which team they’re supporting. The atmosphere’s friendly and even quite peaceful really.
Particularly between this married couple in front of us, who each supported a different team. Perhaps they use the final score to decide who’s doing the dishes, but at least we entertained his wife with our guy talk by throwing in the F-word a lot, the only word she could understand from our conversations in Dutch.
Speaking of Dutch, besides our tulips, wooden clogs and herbal freedom, we Dutchies are renowned for our bargaining spirit. During our cab ride to the Candlestick Stadium, we showed our bargaining skills when a couple of street guys offered official printed $110 tickets. Long story short, we managed to get them for $75 since the match was about to kick off within less than an hour at 5.15pm.
During our walk of the final 4 blocks to the stadium, we got lost in a neighborhood straight from the Grand Theft Auto game. A guy kindly pointed out the directions, even though I mistakenly asked for Candlelight instead of Candlestick Stadium.
Jorrit bought a 49’ers jacket earlier to stay warm from the cold wind. Unfortunately I didn’t pack any jacket and also forgot to bring a sweater to the Candlestick. 
So just in shorts and polo shirt, I almost froze my (foot)balls off during ciggie breaks. It’s funny though to see how these guys and gals greet their own fan base and ridicule their opponents.
But apparently there’s a third party that’s even worse than their fierce opponent: neutral Switzerland.
A 49’er fan asked me for a light and started small talk about my whereabouts. His buddy shouted: Hey Tony, why the hell are you talking to a guy in a goddamn polo shirt?? He explained it’s not cool to hide your loyalty to a team, but laughed when he found out I’m from Holland and just enjoying a nice game of football.
The 4th final quarter got filled with suspense. What seemed like a certain loss for the 49’ers turned into a cheerful victory over Oakland:
San Francisco 49’ers: 21 – Raiders: 20
After the match, we waited for over an hour in a huge line for a cab. Finally we got our ride and took us to In N Out Burger for a delicious American double touch down burger with Swiss cheese.