Snow snow snow everywhere

Late January 2015, we heard that a winter storm is coming to Northeast. It was predicted so bad that we have travel ban and all public transportation stop working. Well, the storm never left Boston. From 26 January to 20 February, Boston has received 96 inches of snow. Every week we heard a storm is coming, and it actually came and disrupt all our plan.

The first storm was Juno and people actually quite excited about it. We went out, walked around the deserted road, jump into the fluffy snow and went sledding on the second day. Then came second, third and fourth (is there fifth storm? I lost count) snow storm and at this point people just want to stop.

Traveling has become a challenge. Bus stops have no proper place to wait. Trains are not running. Walking needs extra caution, you either walk in the snow or slippery ice. Sometimes you have to brave the wind chill. It is essential that you wear water-proof boots.

 Now the storm has quietly receded since last weekend. We even got above zero degrees Celsius on Sunday. What a happy day! I hope the weather stays this way and slowly melting the snow. What I can say is that I have never seen so much snow in my life until this 1 month and I think I have enough of it.

 Spring, please come faster! 

How I survive Superbowl XLIX

Even though I don't agree that American football is called football, this sport is big in US and since I am here, I have to accept that is the football, and the football I knew is soccer. Fine. Once a year, two teams will compete to bring home the Superbowl trophy. This year, Superbowl XLIX (it's 49 for non-roman people) was on the 1st of February.

My feeling was neutral about Superbowl, neither too excited about the game nor despised having to hear about it all week long prior to the game. It is hard to avoid when your town team is going to the Superbowl and have a controversy about their balls. And it is also hard to ignore considering the quarterback of your town team is good looking with supermodel as a wife. Hehe

Being non-American and wasn't being exposed to this game until 6 years ago, it is hard for me to really enjoy it. But this year, I managed to enjoy it following with this few easy steps:

1) Understand the game

It is hard to enjoy something if you don't understand what is going on. You will lose interest, and before you know it, you are doing something else. For this reason, try to understand this game. Read about the players and maybe same interesting facts. It is quite hard to understand football by just reading. You need live game and someone to explain that to you to make it easier to understand. This brings us to the second point.

2) Watch it with the right people

It is important to watch it with the right crowd. You don't want to watch with a football fanatic who knew every players' stats, team history, and every single rule in the game. They will hate interruption, will look at you as if you are dumbass not knowing what the sport. You feel intimidate to ask questions and end up still clueless about the game. You also don't want to watch with people who is clueless about the game. Since they can't help you and you can't help them, you'll end up doing something else as both of you don't enjoy the game anymore. What you need is a combination of people who knew at least the basic of the game and some people who as clueless as you. So the people who are not fanatic but knew about the game will explain what happening now without you feeling like a loser since there are other people who don't know. You can ask basic questions and know at least basic rules to enjoy the game. In addition, since the crowd is not fanatic into the game, it is ok to discuss other things during the game. Like Steve Tyler's daughter is Liv Tyler who acted in Armageddon. Or Richard Sherman from Seahawks graduated from Stanford and Tom Brady from UMich and what school one of our friend is going to transfer to.

3) Have some awesome food

This is important. Having awesome food and dessert is important to ensure that we can 1) convince people to come to watch with us 2) avoid unnecessary anger due to empty stomach 3) as a topic when the game started to get boring 4) reason to stay longer until the game end aka endless trip to buffet table. 'Nuff said.

Optional

4) Your town team is playing

It is easy to get excited when you town's team is playing. You see everywhere in the supermarket, train, outside, banners hanging cheering for the team. It is easy to pick a team when watching the Superbowl because it is so obvious who you should cheer for. For me, it is of course New England Patriots. Go Pats!

5) Your team won

Well, it is easy to survive when your team won especially when the ending was so nerve breaking and unexpected.

That is how I survive and surprisingly enjoyed Sunday's game. We thought Patriots was going to lose but that interception by Butler saved the day! It was unbelievable. And to add the cherry on top of that winning, most of Boston universities closed the next day because of snow day. Yeayyy..

New England Patriots vs Seattle Seahawks. Pic from here