European Soccer

Me in the stadium.

While we have been staying here in Krakow, Poland, we got to go to a pro soccer game. It was really cool. The stadium was huge, and the fans are crazy.

But first, before you even get to think about going to a soccer game, you need to worry about getting the tickets. But before you can get tickets, you need to worry about getting a fan card. And before you can get a fan card, you need to have some form of valid ID. Luckily, we had our passports, which are slightly important to this whole operation. So we go to the place to get the fan cards, and fill out these forms, which are in Polish, so we can't understand them. Then we realize that there is an English code type thing, which helped a lot, and we eventually got the forms filled out. Then we went over and got in line to actually get our fan cards. It took several minutes to get each fan card approved, and only one person would do it. The others were sleeping or wouldn't help us. So it took us a little under an hour to get all of our fan cards. (Ask me when we get back, I am going to save it). Then we went to get the tickets, and that was actually pretty easy. We handed the lady our fan cards, and our dad's credit card, and we got our tickets. It was pretty smooth.

The Away supporters, with their flares.

We came back a few hours later, and went to the game. They padded some of us down. We went to our seats. It was really cool. The fans were really crazy. One section was gated off, for the away team supporters. Apparently they've had some problems in the past. Across from them, behind the other goal, was the main group of home team supporters. If you've ever been to an RSL game, you know what the drummers section is like. Crazy and wild. The whole side of the stadium was like them, with a few less drums. They even had a director. Near the end of the game, the away team was losing, and the away supporters were chanting something, and then the home supporters were chanting something else. It was in Polish so we had no idea what they were saying. Then the away fans brought out some flares or something, and they were bright red and made a ton of smoke. The smoke got so thick that they stopped the game for a few minutes to let it clear.

The smoke from the flares.

Us at halftime, it was pretty cold.

Overall it was a pretty cool experience.