The most glaring one is that the local club opened their newly rebuilt stadium just in time for the beginning of the season. Beijing Guoan spent the previous three seasons at a temporary ground in the west of the city. And this new stadium, built on the grounds of the old one, was purpose-built for the beautiful game. As anyone would imagine, the buzz around the new ground led to a sellout for the opening match back in April and that sentiment has continued ever since.

Bardstown will be where real bourbon aficionados go, not the wannabes who fetishize Kentucky and the nostalgia of bourbon, but never make the effort to meet the locals. Bardstown should be for the folks looking for more than just transactional tourism.

If patience were an actual virtue, we’d be the most virtuous couple on the planet. After a five-week wait, we’ve finally sorted our wifi mess and, my brothers and sisters, it is the most glorious thing ever. The Luddites among you will shake their heads, the rest of humanity, the people capable of emotions, they’ll understand completely. Yes, yes, yes, I’m overreacting. One may even suggest this is all hyperbole, but what were we going to do if we couldn’t join Threads?

It was an intense affair played between two serious teams with compelling arguments for winning the whole thing. Argentina on the downswing after the high of the late 80s. The Netherlands nearing their apex–maybe they could have been champions of at least one tournament in the late 90s if not for the magistery of a Zidane-led France.

Settling is as settling does. A few days shy of a full month in the Chinese capital of Beijing and the settling is certainly threatening to move from subplot to main theme. We’re told, at some point, the whole exercise becomes an afterthought, an exercise from a bygone era of transition. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Moving to a place like Beijing has been a bit like parenthood. Everyone already here or with extensive experience has their own tidbits to share. Go here, use this app, hire this person, etc. It’s up to you to sort out which morsel will fit your needs. Because what works for some folks may not work for you. And that’s okay.

We’re well into our second week in Beijing and each day, we’re getting ever closer to the ever-elusive idea of being settled. Our US phones are still not functioning properly, which sucks, but is ultimately fine as we’ve sorted out basic communications with friends and family. We did finally get a food ordering app set up on our Chinese phones and that has been a game changer.

Beijing is a pleasantly odd place. It is both familiar and foreign. It is, at times, an assault on your sensibilities while at the same time accommodating them. It takes whatever limits you may have set for yourself and gently prods you to test them.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch an eager-looking gentleman trying to get my attention. Medium height, shaved head, bushy eyebrows, dark eyes, olive skin, but with a few extra pounds around his waistline. Polo shirt untucked, jeans looking neatly pressed. If I was honest, he looked like a Telly Savalas-Igal Naor hybrid.

For any parent, a road trip can be an extreme stressor. It wasn’t much different for my dad, except it was all compounded his divorce, visiting his family he hadn't seen in years as they were all in California, DC or Iran, and that he had to drive a 1978 Ford Maverick all by himself with three young kids at varying states of defiance.

As far as the language thing goes, well it wasn’t hard to sort that out. For them, unaccustomed to diversity in the ways I manifested it, being half-Iranian obviously meant I had to be fluent in many languages. This way was easier for people to wrap their head around what I was.

But on Wednesday, June 26th, I went for a different experience altogether. As a wannabe sportswriter, one who wants to cover the game from a fan’s perspective—and not just necessarily DC United—I’ve always wondered what it would be like to sit in a professional press box.

One of the few remaining neighborhood grounds, it’s not like any of the modern stadiums being built nowadays. Nestled snugly within the confines of a tightly fitting neighborhood, space is definitely a scarce commodity. All of which provides a character more akin to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. After your ticket is scanned, you walk up a narrow set of stairs to your section. But at the landing, you’re greeted by the concession area, which itself is equally lacking in space. The tight confines add to the charm though. Fans accommodate each other and are gracious when shoulders and bodies inevitably collide.

But the biggest violator of my mother’s ban on her children’s consumption of sweetened cereal was not my father, it was her father—my grandfather. There is no question whether or not he was aware of the embargo—he was. He willfully and knowingly chose to ignore it. Nothing my mother said or did could have convinced my grandfather of the merits of her moratorium on sugar filled cereals. I am not sure she even put up a fight. Her acquiescence was likely due to her in depth knowledge that his stubbornness—which she picked up from him and subsequently passed along to me—would likely further entrench his position if she were to protest loudly.

Then he stomped his feet as loud as he could have on our wooden porch. Almost instantaneously, the two figures in the garage dropped whatever metal vessels they had with them for carrying the gas they were planning on siphoning from my parent’s cars. And before the containers hit the ground they were scurrying away, reversing their path to our garage. Kicking up dust in their midst. Gravel and asphalt crackling under the their footfalls.

Liverpool fans the world over all know what happens next. LFC held on to beat AC Milan in a shootout winning their fifth Champions League/European Cup.

Within the next few days, I started to make my own comeback. The migraines subsided, my appetite returned (I’d lost nearly 20 pounds over a ten day period), and I was able to get out of bed and move around for extended periods of time.

But my hospital stay, in all of its terribleness, led me to Liverpool. I will forever link the Miracle of Istanbul to my own comeback. And for that, I will always be a Kopite, a Red, a Liverpool fan, a Scouser.

Asking for condiments was a violation almost as grave as not wanting to try something unfamiliar. It was a corollary rookies would often violate. No matter how much we tried to stop or prepare them for the protocol, we’d inevitably fail. One such occasion came in my sophomore year of high school, one of my less experienced friends joined us for the usual Friday feast of grilled meats, rice (one bowl of plain rice, another bowl of rice with egg yolk), and salad.

An addiction to the beautiful game and arguably its most exciting competition took hold.

But there was something about that game that drove that hook even deeper. Like the first time you taste a craft beer after years of stale macro brews. Or when you get that first sip of 12-year Balvenie after growing up on bottom-shelf bourbon. Whatever it was, I wanted more.