The ice hockey world championship game begins in one minute. It's Finland vs. Canada. The country is pretty excited. Finland beat Russia yesterday in the semifinals and the yells and cheering we heard from neighbors during the game were just as loud as the ones we heard in Germany when Germany won the World Cup.
It's invigorating to be in a country that excels in sports internationally. The UAE had falconry and archery and equestrian...ism, which were exotic, but a sport where you can get up and yell in support of your team is more relatable to this American. Finland even played the US early on in the ice hockey championship rounds. Never mind that I can't name a single player on the US team - my country sported against Finland. And even though they didn't sport as well as Finland did, I'm excited to see Finland sport tonight against Canada.
On a more local note - people exercise so much here. They seem to do it not only to keep in shape, but also for the joy of it, which is something I haven't seen since we left the US. In the UAE, for climate and cultural reasons, exercise was something that, if you did it at all, you did it mostly inside of a gym. Here, there are people cycling and running and walking all over the place. I was doing some stair-climbing repeats on a huge staircase near the local track the other night and even though it was like 8pm on a Saturday, there were tons of other random people doing the same thing. Just to exercise. Just cuz. It was nice to fit in!
