The Life of a Patriots Fan

Last night, me and a couple fellow football fans experienced what I thought was the most challenging task of the trip so far: finding a way to watch football. Not the football they care about here (soccer), but “American football”.

We began by walking around the city after dinner in an attempt to find a sports bar that a) is open at 3am when the Patriots play and b) knows what the NFL even is. After an unsuccessful expedition through the bustling and confusing Ho Chi Minh City, we returned to the hotel to ask for help. They had no idea what we were looking for. Then I had an idea. I suggested that we skype someone back at Elon, and instruct them to point their laptop at the television (a brilliant idea, I know).

That was when we faced our next obstacle: the temporary lack of wifi in the hotel. We tried asking the receptionist if there was anywhere in this city that was open at 3am where we could get wifi, but the language barrier proved to be an issue. Discouraged, I went to bed with the feeling that there was no way we were going to be successful.

Then, there was a knock on my door. Adam walked in with a sticky note inscribed with Vietnamese writing, completely meaningless to us. The only English word we could distinguish was the word “wifi”. So we set our alarms for 3, showed a cab driver the note and off we went…

After a 5 minute ride, we arrived at a 24 hour coffee shop, which was lit up with funky lights and playing loud pop music. Not what we were expecting, but there was Internet access! We easily connected with a friend at Elon who was more than willing to stream the game for us via FaceTime. He actually found our scenario to be very amusing. Not the comfiest of places, and not the biggest screen to watch on, but we took what we could get.

For the duration of the game, we watched as the city came to life slowly. Vendors set up shop, and the streets became busier and busier. I learned a lot about this place through this experience. In general, people are willing to do whatever they can to help, even if communication is a challenge. We were never given the answer “no”. Instead we were given ideas by the locals, even though we all knew it was a long shot. In the end, nothing would have been possible if it weren’t for the willingness of people to help us anyway they could.

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