Just because I'm not in the US, doesn't mean I can't keep to its traditions. And there's just no way I could've gone a year without watching the Super Bowl. I mean, come on. It's the Super Bowl.
I watched the same game that everyone else did, but I was surprised at how different it still managed to be.
I went to a friends house to watch it with him, and the first difference was, was that even though we watched it live, it was on Monday. With the time difference, the game started at 1am Monday morning.
It was also different to not have a big party with a bunch of people over laughing over the commercials, and screaming at eachother over the game with food and drinks everywhere. But we still enjoyed ourselves, and had a more relaxing night, and we actually got to pay attention to the game without getting distracted.
It seemed to get weirder and more different as the time went on, though.
First, it was that the commentary was in Spanish. I just had a really hard time trusting the announcers when they commentated on the game, especially when the average Spaniard honestly thinks that rugby and football are the same sport.
Then, the way they pronounced people's names, and the team names, just made them sound even more unbelievable. But luckily after about the first 10 minutes, we were able to switch it to the English commentary.
The difference that I had the biggest problem with, though, was the commercials.
There weren't any. They didn't even show Spanish commercials!
Everytime the game cut out and where the commercials were supposed to be, we just got a steady bird's-eye view of the stadium. Nothing else.
It was frustrating to sit there looking at the stadium from up above, and thinking about how the rest of the world was laughing their heads off in that moment.
After the first half, still frustrated with the lack of commercials, I set up Skype with Leah, and she set up her camera to the TV so we could watch the commercials.
It didn't really work too well, and it was hard to hear with the party in the background, but we tried.
One thing I noticed during that attempt, though, was that we, here in Spain, got the game more than 30 seconds ahead of the US.
How does that work? Why would the game get broadcasted so much later in its OWN COUNTRY?
That one still boggles me...
But, all in all, I still really enjoyed it, and I was glad to see the Packer's win. Especially since my friend's host sister studied abroad in the US the year that the Steeler's beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. So I was glad to see her team lose and make fun of her about it.
And thank God for YouTube so I could watch all the commercials the next morning.
I think the Best Buy one with Justin Bieber and Ozzy Osbourne was my favorite.
