Banana

In light of the ongoing World Cup I thought I'd write a bit about my experience with soccer in Russia. During our visit to Sovietsk last September I had the chance to prove once again that Americans are worse at soccer than Russians. Since males need activities in order to carry on a conversation, it's fortunate that we had plenty of opportunities to play together.

One type of game in particular is called "banana." The name probably has something to do with the half cirlce formation that the players stand in around the goal. The rules are pretty complicated and it took me a while to catch on. One person plays goalie while the others try to score. You can't touch the soccer ball twice in a row and you have to kick the ball into the goal from the air and not the ground. If someone kicks the ball out of bounds, they end up as the goalie. You can also end up as goalie if you break one of the other rules that I didn't understand and constantly broke. I played A LOT of goalie. But I had so much fun. It made a memory for me and gave me something to write to the boys about and say "remember when we played banana and it was hilarious." I think I'll brush up my skills so I don't spend so much time as goalie now. ...Ah well, who am I kidding?