July 31, 2025
Ollie was the first one up today. He had migrated to our room at some point in the night and when he tried to wake me about around 7AM I told him to go back to bed. I was tired from my late night of ticket hunting but I was able to get four tickets at around 1AM! About 30 minutes later I woke up to Ollie saying “No No No”. When I asked him what he was doing he said that he really wanted to take his iPad but knew he wasn’t supposed to so was telling himself not to do it. That gave me a good laugh so I was also now up.
We got changed quietly and headed out for a walk and agreed to try our first route in Pokémon Go. The game shows you where to walk on a map and you follow the path. At the end you get a reward and exchange a gift with some other player who has walked the route. We walked along the waterfront and finished the route right after passing the docked Semi-Submarine. Our gift exchange was with someone from Georgia, USA.
We walked back home and stopped to get coffees and an almond croissant and pistachio doughnut to share. After breakfast we did a home school session. Lenny complained a bit about doing his words but he really knows them much better now than he did at the start. He has also come very far with math since the days of counting coins in Cape Town.
After home school Kayleen headed out for a pedicure with the plan of the boys and I meeting her when she was done. Once we meet up the boys opted to use their newly allotted daily Pokémon time. The constant request to “check if there are only cool Pokémon” became too distracting for all of us so we are attempting something new. They get 10 minutes a day, which they most agree to use at the same time, where they get our phones to play. Today was the first day and it worked well as they got to find a good spot in the city with a lot of Pokémon action and sit in the shade to play. Working together they did “Pokémon Gym Raids” as a team. It will be a challenge to get a picture of this since they have both of our phones!
We headed to lunch after where we got a shaded table outside and played a few rounds of Uno. The boys were thrilled that we once again found classic lemonade, with no carbonation. After giving Lenny a turn to pay the bill with our credit card we were off to the HNK Hajduk fan shop. We grabbed team shirts for the boys and Kayleen got a scarf, I had cloths that matched their home colors so opted out though the scarfs were tempting. Lenny also got inflatable team swimmies to help him explore more easily at the beach. When checking out I proudly let the cashier know I was a member of the team fan club, something I had to do to help get tickets, to get my 12% discount.
Then we headed to a bigger grocery store I had passed yesterday to get food for dinner. The store wasn’t huge but much bigger than the one close to our apartment. The only downside is we needed to climb the mountain of stairs that we had done to return from the beach yesterday with all the groceries. We managed but were glad to be in the A/C in our apartment once we made it.
The soccer match does not start until 9PM so we needed some quiet time to rest before our big night. The boys were keen to watch Ironman together up in their loft area. From our room I could hear Lenny peppering Ollie with questions about the movie and Ironman in general. Nice for Ollie to get a taste of his own medicine! He eventually cracked and let out “Lenny, can you just let me watch the movie!!!” Lenny seems to really like Tony Stark, at the end of the movie when you think Ironman might have lost the fight, I could hear him ask Ollie in distress if Tony was dead…luckily he was not.
Kayleen made grill cheese for the boys and ricotta toast for us before we suited up and headed out to the game. The stadium was a 25-minute walk from our apartment and it was a beautiful night. The team logo was all over the streets as we got closer to the stadium. The game was very important as it is Champions League qualifier match against Zira (a team from Azerbaijan). The first game between the two sides in Azerbaijan was a 1-1 tie so whoever won this game would move on.
The game we went to in Norway was the same type of Champions League qualifier match but as soon as we got near the stadium, we could tell the atmosphere was different. There was no line to get in the gate, you just pushed your way to the front, orderly line in Norway. There were police trucks lining the stadium and police dressed in full SWAT gear everywhere, didn’t notice one policeman in Norway. The stadium, mainly the hardcore fan section on the North side, yelled and stood for the entire game while waving massive flags. Fans were smoking cigarettes and spending the whole game sitting or standing on the steps that lead up and down the stadium.
All that said it didn’t feel unsafe and there were plenty of other families with kids there. There was one little girl sitting right next to us and for the first half she watched Ollie more than the game. Literally she was just staring at him every time I looked over, he claims he didn’t notice. The only reason it stopped in the second half is we switched seats after a halftime bathroom break.
The boys ate ice cream cones with the worst design ever, chocolate on the outside of the cone so it was impossible to hold without covering your hands in melted chocolate, and a massive bag of popcorn each. Lenny also got a blue Powerade which he took a sip of and yelled, “It’s sooooo GOOD!!!”
HNK Hajduk scored in the first half and held the 1-0 lead for most of the game. In the second half a fight broke out at the bottom of the stairs we walked up and down. The boys were too short to see it as everyone stood up but Kayleen and I could see. We decided to leave 5 minutes before the game ended to beat the crowds mass exodus.
As we were leaving with 5 minutes left to play, we noticed a lot of other families with kids doing the same. We saw the police dressed in SWAT gear heading into the stadium to help lead an orderly clearing of the stadium. We also people standing at the top of the North, hardcore fan, side of the stadium. One step back or an accidental push and they would likely fall to their death…
Kayleen and I laughed that Lenny will have lived more life by the time he is five than most people will in their whole life…hopefully he remembers some of it.
Sadly, on our walk home I looked at my phone to realize that Zira had scored to tie it in stoppage time. We had felt so good the game would end in regulation as Zira had one player sent off with a red card so were playing down a man. HNK Hajduk scored in extra time and ended up winning 2-1 and we were happy to be home already, about to get in bed.
