World Cup Pity Party

A few days ago the BBC was asking for people's World Cup memories. We watched a fair bit of the first couple of weeks since we were on vacation and there wasn't any English-language television to be had, but the match that will live on in Phillips Family Lore was Portugal v North Korea. Now really, who wouldn't want North Korea to lose? Terrorists, that's who.

We sat down to watch in a cafe while we ate lunch. A cafe, by the way, that had the most fabulous pastries. (The Portuguese are very into pastries.) So the match comes on and the whole place explodes into cheers when Portugal scores. And again! And again! Down with the North Koreans! Take that you crazy lunatic dictator! The place was abuzz with excitement (and lots of sugar from all those pastries).

But somewhere around goal #5, the mood started to shift. As the Portuguese players piled on, eventually we all started feeling bad for those poor beleaguered North Korean bastards. Their country is already a craphole and they're all starving. Do they have to get beaten to death in the World Cup too? When the Portuguese scored goal #7, no one cheered. The entire room just winced.

And a few other memories (you'll notice that in none of these do I actually remember who was playing)

• Listening to the crazy guy behind me in Lisbon who had ordered snails and was consuming them in the most pornographic way as we longed for the vuvuzelas to drown out the all the slurping.
• Eating mediocre pizza twice in a week while in Estremoz because they had a nice big flatscreen. And also because I was off Portuguese food after an unfortunate incident with stewed partridge and some buckshot.
• Awakening in the middle of the night to the sound of urine whizzing around a toilet bowl while in San Sebastian. The urinator was back from a late-night World Cup celebration. The hotel had VERY thin walls.
  
• Overhearing the (I'm sorry to say) American girl at the table behind us ask her buddies if the World Cup or something like that were about to start. (This was in week 2). Her buddy goes, "Oh no no. The thing right now is FIFA. The World Cup is later." They were med students. So that's comforting.