Here’s a bonus article, as I’m wrapping up my blog writing (still one wrap-up blog post to go though…). If you have been reading the blog regularly, you may have noticed that I had a photo of the kids playing soccer in many of the posts.  It was a goal that the boys had set at the beginning of the trip – they wanted to play at least one soccer game in each country.  Lucas carried a soccer ball and a pump in his carry-on case throughout the whole trip and the ball was deflated for each flight and reinflated in each new country.  Here’s a wrap up on that experience. And a big thank you to our friends Jasper and Helena who suggested we should come up with a “thing” like this.

Surprisingly, it was actually harder than we expected.  Given soccer/football is such a universally played game, I would have expected fields everywhere, but given our extreme of very-urban and very-remote travel locations, the fields were often hard to find, or behind locked gates. Schools universally seemed to have the best fields but they were usually hard to access.  We however had a ton of fun with this quest and compiled this list of our favourite soccer experiences:

• Game where we got the most in trouble for playing on a field we shouldn’t have:  Kyoto, Japan where we think we were threatened with a fine but we couldn’t understand their Japanese
• Game played with the most family members:  Cousin match in Brisbane, Australia
• Game with the best cheering section:  Ubud, Indonesia when we played across the street from a school at recess time
• Game with the most kids wearing Messi jerseys:  Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam with a spectacular Messi v Messi 1-on-1 game
• Game played with the most locals:  every day at the school where we volunteered in Battambang, Cambodia
• Game with the closest animal encounter:  Pokhara, Nepal when we had to stop the game for a cow that slowly strolled across the field
• Most injury-inducing game:  on the rocky beach in Cirali, Turkey where 3 bloodied knees stymied the game
• Most manicured field:  likely a tie between Netherlands and Sweden with their beautiful but small urban sports facilities
• Game with the hardest to recover ball:  Garmisch, Germany where the ball was kicked on a 2nd level balcony and required a complex climbing-feat to recover
• Game played at the highest altitude:  Cusco, Peru (3625m) with the Davies and we were all SO out of breath.

It was definitely a fun challenge and I’d encourage others to find a “thing” they do in each country they visit.  Playing soccer was a way better choice that taking a photo of a gnome stuffy in each country which was another idea submission.  It also had the advantage of getting Lucas very excited about his upcoming soccer season (thank you Islington Rangers for having him back on the team!).

Enjoy the photos of our games in each country: