Badger game and Wautoma

Another few weeks and many new stories. We have met many new Vikings and unsurprisingly have been out partying with them and have had a great time. This organization just keeps on giving, allowing us to meet incredible people who invite us to their homes and make sure that our calendars are filled with things to do.

One of the highlights of the past few weeks was experiencing the American sports culture that surrounds a football (the American type) game. Two weekends ago, on September the 5th, the Badgers played North Illinois University in the season opener and a week later Fresno State.

Before the first game we (other Scandinavian Vikings + me) headed over to Zachs (Copenhagen Viking summer 2009) house to celebrate his 21st birthday. Finally I got to experience what every European has only seen in bad college movies, a beer keg.


The birthday hero and his keg

The entire day the city was painted red and traffic was bad. The Viking House is located a bit outside of the city and usually traffic flows pretty evenly outside the house but when we left it about three hours before the game, cars were barely moving on the street. The concept of school pride, which in some sense is the underlying reason to this kind of fan culture, is something that is very foreign to me, I don't own any University of Helsinki apparel. In Madison, especially on game day, EVERYBODY wears some Wisconsin Badgers gear.

After partying for a few hours at Zachs house and looking for tickets to the game we headed to the stadium. The walk was not far and about ten minutes later we reached Camp Randall and Camp Randall Stadium. It doesn't look too big from the outside but once I entered the stadium and saw it from the inside I was stunned. 80 000 people chearing for their school team is pretty impressive.


Zach and the student section

On Sunday the 6th we went to a Camp site about 90 minutes to the north from Madison, near a small town called Wautoma. Nathan (Helsinki Viking, spring 2009) has worked at the camp many years so we went there with him, his girlfriend, his friend Quincy and the other Scandos (Weldons name for Louise, Eskil and I). It was a beautiful place that reminded me very much of my family's summer home in Finland. The nature and the general feel of the place was eerily similar to a lakeside camp site in Finland.


Me, Eskil, Quincy, Nathan, Anna & Louise

We arrived back on Monday the 7th, Labor Day. The week that started was rather uneventful until Thursday when we started another real three day bender that is mostly blurry but does include many fun memories thanks to me carrying my camera with me almost all the time. On Thursday we were supposed to play poker but because of a limited interest shown, we instead watched the season opener of NFL, and had a few drinks. On Friday we had another legendary beer pong tournament at the Viking House.


At Jeremiahs place

On Saturday we had to wake up early because the football game against Fresno State was at 11 and we, naturally, had to get a few drinks in us before the game. Louise and I headed over to Jeremiahs (Helsinki Viking spring 2008) place to play some AM beer pong. Then we headed to the game, and ended up loosing Jeremiah and going to the game with Weldon (Oslo Viking summer 2008?), his roommates, Louise and Jeremiahs parents. And once I finally got my breakfast (a hotdog) I felt a lot better (don't recommend drinking about 6-7 beers before breakfast).


Weldon at the Fresno State game on September 12th

After the game we eventually came back to the Viking House, decided to rent canoes from the James Madison Park right next to the VH and went to visit Nathan at his fraternity house were we had some brats and got a tour of their house. The whole fraternity culture is another thing that is really foreign to me. The houses they live in are incredibly big and nice and it is a really interesting set up where you live with a large group of guys in a huge house by the lake, it sounds pretty good.


Louise & Weldon with the James Madison park and the Capitol Building in the background


At Nathans fraternity house

Later that night we went out to dinner and continued the party until early hours, again. The theme on Sunday was recovery, which was painful and slow...

-Patrik

P.S. The videos in the last post are from the season opener against NIU
P.S. 2 To view more pictures, click here (you don't have to have a Facebook account), working on fixing a picasa account...