As some of you may know, the Euro 2004 FOOTBALL tournament is drawing to a close right now. On Wednesday, Portugal beat The Netherlands in their semi-final. The first signs of this that I saw were a couple of cars driving around with Portugal flags sticking out the window as I went down Kipling Avenue to get to the subway. I was, as with every Wednesday, on my way to Joe Rockhead's for a spot of climbing action.
When I was on the subway I realised I was running late and I decided to get off at Dufferin to get the bus south to the climbing gym. Well, this turned out to be a very interesting stop as I now know Dufferin seems to be populated entirely by Portugese people, and football-crazy patriotic Portugese people at that. The bus was struggling through the crowds and it seemed every car driving past us was adorned with a plethora of Portugese pendants and the like. I couldn't believe it. There was cheering, honking of LOTS of horns and lots of happy faces. I wondered if they'd just won a war that I had missed.
I finally got to Rockhead's and climbed for a while before my buddy Gary arrived to take me to the movies where we were meeting up with friends to see Spiderman II. Sadly, the celebrations were not quite over yet for the Portugese contingent of Torontonians that were in our neighbourhood. We were stuck in pretty slow moving traffic for a while with more flags, more cheering, more cars, more dogs wrapped in Portugal flags, etc.
To make things more interesting, I started to yell "Yaaay! SCOTLAND!" out the window as we drove by people with Portugal flags. One guy responded with "F--- Scotland!" but I don't think he was especially angry, just so pro-Portugal that no other name would suffice at that point in time.
I'm going to be sure to avoid downtown Toronto on Sunday. Even if Portugal lose, I'm sure there are more than enough Greek fans to do the honours of clogging the roads if things go the other way. I think we've got every nationality under the sun here.
Oh, Canada.
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Oh Kenny, This is hillarious! We like Scots!! No worries...Too bad Portugal lost in the end...i stopped folloing Euro 2004 after England got booted out, then France did too, so at that point, my grid for Football kinda flopped! :o)
I like the nationalities all freaking out togeter...i wish us Canadians could have a chance..."You reading this Maple Leafs?? Ok Team Canada, earn us some Gold in Athens!! Give us something to clog the streets about, screaming Oh Canada!!
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