Daily life in the USA: the Superbowl

Having grown up with the game called 'soccer', something called 'football' is oddly unfamiliar to me.

But since we moved to the USA right before the football event of the year, we crashcoursed our way into the world of American Football and turned on the tv to watch what all of America was watching: the Superbowl.

This year, it was the Carolina Panthers against the Denver Broncos, Cam Newton versus Peyton Manning (just so you know). For my European friends: teams score points when the ball is 'touched down' at the end of the opponents' side of the field. Sounds easy. But the tricky thing is that they get 4 attempts to advance 10 yards on the field, while throwing the ball to their fellow team mates. If they make it they get another 4 attempts to move 10 yards, and so on. And this is harder than it sounds. The defensive team will do everything to prevent the other team from getting more than a feet. This results in literally crashing into each other as soon as the ball is thrown. And in the game being paused almost every minute...

But luckily we always have commercials! Which during the Superbowl are actually quite funny.

It became a yearly competition to see who has the funniest (and most expensive) commercial of the Superbowl. This year we had the Hulk and Antman fighting over a Coke, Ryan Reynolds living in a town with just other Ryan Reynolds'en and Arnold Schwarzenegger 'stricking back' on his mobile phone. Not sure which one was better, but it was definitely entertaining.

Besides commercials, they have found another way to keep people watching this every year: the famous halftime show. This time it was up to Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars to entertain the Americans sitting in front of their flatscreens. Coldplay was completely lost in the big stadium, and overshadowed by a fierce Beyonce with her dancer army. Together with Bruno Mars, this must have cost a whole lot of dollars!

It took 4 hours (not kidding) for the game to end and for the Broncos to win. But Beyonce and Ryan Reynolds, they saved my night...