Bjarki’s First Football Meet – Skagamótið 2014 – Day One
[Written 14 JULY 2014. Because I can.]
This spring, innocent old me signed Bjarki up for a football meet, not realizing it was THREE DAYS of commitment a little ways away from the capital, with two overnight stays. After much hand-wringing about how to go about this, I ended up taking Bjarki there, while Finnur and the girls hung out in the city.
We arrived around noon-time on Friday, and went straight to the opening ceremony. (19 images total)
Bjarki with his fellow team-members. Their team is called Breiðablik. It doesn’t really translate, but they had a ton of teams there.
The boys played three games on the Friday afternoon. Those three games determined which teams would play together the following days (four games on Saturday, and one on Sunday). Each game was 2×12 minutes, which was wayyyy too long in my opinion. 2×8 or 2×10 minutes would have been plenty. The poor kids were all exhausted at the end of the day!
I’ve come to the conclusion that football abilities depend a lot on whether a child has an older sibling that plays. Bjarki does not, and it showed.
The boys getting some green in their hair. There were a lot of teams from Breiðablik competing, but our team kept to itself a lot.
Bjarki greened up on top.
Bjarki wearing the goalie gloves. The boys were supposed to follow a schedule and take turns being goalie, but it soon became apparent that the boys had their own plans. Bjarki was ok with being goalie until a goal was scored and then he was done.
All of our games were indoors that day, but some teams played outside the entire time. It stayed mostly dry, but the weather could have been better.
Hey! Time for another game!
Bjarki paying attention.
One of the official photographers doing their thing. I’d decided against bringing my zoom lens, and I kind of regretted it. Maybe there’ll be a next time?
Snack time! I was impressed by how organized everything was. The parents of each team brought snacks to eat between games, which was a big hit.
The third and last game about to begin. I think they won this one, after losing the other two. But that’s not what this was all about…
About to head in to get their team photo taken.
The games were played right next to the beach. Bjarki got permission to go down to the ocean, and wade in his boots. He returned some 10 minutes later soaking wet after having stumbled into a hole dug by a little river. Ooops!
This photo is taken from the same spot as the beach one, just turned a bit to the left. Yup, that’s the big indoor football building.
Bjarki returning soaking wet. Luckily I had a change of clothes for him in my bag!
Included in the meet-fee was full meals for the boys. I therefore left Bjarki in the capable hands of the team leader, and went and got myself an AWESOME dinner. I was flabbergasted by how good the food was at Galito. The restaurant seemed to do most of its business selling pizzas and hamburgers, which was a real crying shame.
After dinner I went to the tent site of Breiðablik (the team) which was next to the old boats.
A small portion of the tent city.
That marked the end of the day, and we went to the school where Bjarki and his team members slept overnight. I’d volunteered to be a parent sleeper, which went mostly ok. I did learn an important lesson though, and that is making absolutely sure every kid in the room has someone responsible for him/her because oh boy, there was this one boy… and then these other two…
Let’s just say I’ve had better nights.