Day 32: Bad futbol, good beer and a treasure hunter.

Another trend that seems to surpass cultural boundaries is the combination of football and beer. We realized that our tiny cable TV has lots of English channels and while most of the time it’s locked on HBO, we’ve found out that Fox Sports televises NFL football games. Even though we have four ESPNs, they are all dedicated to Central American’s futbol and Tom Brady wasn’t going to be a highlight. Knowing that Tom was somewhere to be found, we headed to town to see if the local NFL bar we saw was where we’d find him.

Unfortunately, they opted for Rothlesberger and that wasn’t enough to get our business. If we returned home, we’d get Drew Brees and we preferred that. But rather than make our trip wasteful, we headed to a new local restaurant/bar, San Clemente, to do our regular internet routine while curing some hunger pangs. A few fajitas, fried plantains and Imperials later, we headed home. We stopped along the way to watch a local futbol game (guess we got to see futbol one way or another) and cheered on the Dominical team that appeared to be the underdogs. Kids and wives walked back from the snack stand to their truck tire seats with handfuls of fried chicken and fruit juice. Male fans took a break from the action to grab beers from the bar across from the field.

We also decided to visit the employee that sold us our free glasses and told us to come back mas tarde. He recognized us, but apparently still hadn’t figured out whatever it was we were supposed to come back for. One employee told us to wait “un momento” but left us standing around for way more than “un.” When we finally found him sitting at a picnic table finishing his breakfast, we bought some ice cream and left. He made mention of the glasses with the same confusion we first encountered so we have no clue if we owe him money or if he owes us money. I don’t really care. I’ve got the glasses and I ain’t giving them back no matter how many untranslatable conversations we have.

We headed back to watch American football in our home, on our cushions. Our only option was probably the worst game of the day according to the scrolling scores at the bottom of the screen so we suffered through the Raiders vs. 49ers and even wagered on it to make it as interesting a game could be with more penalty flags than plays. I lost since the Raiders failed to make any more plays after their first quarter lead.

Our neighbor and his giant Rottweiler came home mid game and we decided to introduce ourselves. His name is Ray (his dog is 100+ pound Mickey who’s as gentle as a poodle) and he’s a retired treasure hunter (this was exciting for me cause I didn't realize they actually exist outside of Paul Walkler and Matthew McConaughey movies). Originally from Texas, he moved to the Florida Keys as a commercial fisherman before he met Mel Fisher, a now deceased famous treasure master that monopolized Florida’s coast. According to him, if you found a ship, you had to ask Mel before you could explore it. He even shared with us his first find, a 1622 coin that weighed as much as an expensive watch. He informed us that this famous Mr. Fisher had fished out more than 400 million dollars worth of treasure, fought over 300 court cases to claim his findings, and was awarded his discoveries plus the rights to all ships in the Florida sea, found and unfound. He’s a legend. I intend to Google him at the next internet visit ‘cause he could have made that all up and we wouldn’t know. It was a cool story though.

The day ended nicely as we flipped through the channels and ESPN decided Brady was worth it’s time. We got a glimpse of the Patriot’s victory and Tom’s luscious locks during a highlight reel. So in the end, I still won…regardless of how bad the Raiders are.