Super Bowl!!!

Date	Place of run	Duration (min)	Pull-ups	Long sprint uphill	Long sprint downhill	4 flights	Start time
3 Feb	Kavaja to M. Teresa	32	15,15	1:18.49	59.88	20.57	9:30

            The sprint up the hill, record being 1:03 (a bit more than a minute), took 1:18.  I was clumping along, feeling quite uncomfortable.  BUT, after running around town to my usual spots, doing some pull-ups, and sprinting up and down the steps of the university near Mother Theresa Square, I came back to the spot and ran downhill the same stretch.  I made my goal of 1 minute by 12 one-hundredths of a second!  Happy times!!

            Sunday night.  Super Bowl Sunday.  I wrote to guy from Colorado who I met playing Ultimate Frisbee.  “Hey, Brian, are you watching the game tonight?  Can I join your Super Bowl party?” 

            “You can join us for sure.  We’re watching at a bar downtown called Cheers.”  So I asked where, exactly.  He told me it would be best to look on Facebook. 

            Maxim and I were using my computer to watch the third ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie, so I’d have to wait to check it out.  After the movie, I found the address of the bar near the New York bagel shop.  I confirmed with Mr. Colorado, and he said, “Well, it used to be there, but now it’s close to Wilson Circle.”  So I went there, and asked around.  No one had ever heard of Cheers.  I looked on Facebook, but the address was wrong, and no one answered the phone number.  Such is life, but with persistence, and help from Brian, I found it some 30 minutes before kickoff. 

            “What’s your team?” asked a guy wearing a Patriots jersey. 

            “Patriots!” I answered without missing a beat.

            Then I found the group headed by Brian, which included several people from Seattle.  “Go Seahawks!” I quickly admitted that I didn’t really care who won.

            A couple minutes into the game, Ilir came around and asked if anyone wanted to join his little pool.  There were 10 boxes.  Each box would cost 100 lek ($.90).  After all boxes were purchased, a single digit would be assigned to each. At half-time, the scores of both teams would be added, and the one’s column would be examined.  Whoever owned the box corresponding to that number would win all $9.  I had bit of experience with such a system.  In Baku, about 15 years ago, I bought a couple boxes in a 100-box ‘pool.’  During that game, I won $25!  Fully in the spirit of the game, I bought 3 of the 10 boxes. When the numbers were assigned, I was saddled with 2, 7, and 8.  Completely random, completely no-brainer, pure gambling. 

            If you watched the game, you may remember that the Patriots scored with less than 2 minutes to go in the half to make the score 14 – 7.  At that point, whoever owned the ‘1’ box would win the $9.  The Seahawks still had time to score, but they might not.  The guy next to me, from Seattle, owned the ‘4’ box.  He, of course, wanted the Seahawks to score.  For the purposes of the all-important pool, he would have liked them to make a 3-point field goal.  I thought that would be fun, but in the back of my mind, I could see that if they scored a touchdown, the score would be 14-14, or (less likely) 14-13.  With either of those scores, I would be a winner.  The Seahawks quickly moved into field goal position, but before I could say deflategate there were :03 seconds left and they had scored a touchdown!!!!  My role was cemented in Albanian history as the winner of 2015 Tirana Super Bowl Halftime gambling extravaganza. 

            I stuck around for most of the rest of the third quarter, until the score was 24-14 in favor of the Seahawks.  I woke up Monday morning and saw that the Patriots had won.  It looked like a very boring score.  On Wednesday, however, I played Frisbee with Brian, and afterwards, I asked about the game.  He said it was a good game until 26 seconds left when Seattle took the ball and gave it to the Patriots saying, “Here you go, we don’t want it.”  So the game was actually quite exciting.  And wouldn’t you know it…my team won! …AND I won $9 dollars (after paying $2.70). 

Here is a picture of the winning gambling scrap.