Martin's Diary (November 10-24, 2000)

Friday, 10 November
Today is Veteran's Day. We had a day off school, and my dad's friend, Tom from Half Moon Bay, came to visit for the long weekend. While he was here, we went to see the local coastline. We went to Bodega Bay, which has a very interesting harbor. We saw a big fish market and a seal that was playing in the harbor and popped his head up and down and said, "Hello" to Hugo, our dog. We don't have seals near us in England other than out in the middle of the local river.

Later, after an excellent fish-and-chip lunch, we went to Salmon Creek, which was a fantastic sandy beach. It was really sunny, and I ran up and down the beach in my shorts and played baseball and football. The tides were very strong, and one minute you were playing in the sand and the next the ball was in the ocean. I had never seen such strong currents before. We had a great time. Hugo was exhausted, having run up and down the beach all afternoon. I got wet and had to change my shoes and socks in the car.

Friday, 17 November
Today was a special day because my class and I had a school trip to the theater in the town of Sonoma. We saw The Sound of Music, which was performed by a local group of actors. It wasn't as good as the movie because it missed out (left out) the story about how the family escaped from the Nazis. Since I knew the full story, it was not as good as I had hoped.

Before the show, we had lunch in the local park. It was a nice, warm day so we were lucky because in England it's always too cold to have a picnic lunch.

Sunday, 19 November
Today was the day of the big soccer match. My new indoor soccer team, the Wasps, played the first real tough game of the season. Before today's match, we had won every game really easily, but we knew (because my best friend was playing for the other side today) that this game was the crunch match.

The game was extremely exciting during the 20 minutes of each half, and you could never separate the teams by more than two goals. The game ended in a 9 to 9 tie. I scored 5 goals, and my friend (on the other team) scored 7. All the parents and coaches cheered and clapped for what was one of the best games ever played in that league.

Thursday, 23 November
Thanksgiving was very interesting because for me it did not mean very much. We do not have any family with whom to eat the traditional meal. Most of my friends at school had been invited to their families' homes. Some were going out of town for that. But we stayed at home.

My dad bought all the traditional food, and he tried to make as traditional a meal as he could. I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have enjoyed a festival like Christmas at home because I did not have any family to celebrate it with. Anyway, it was a day's holiday off school. In the afternoon, there was some American football on the television, so I watched that!

Friday, 24 November
Today was the day of the local high-school team's semifinal game against another high school from a nearby city. It was played in the local junior college athletics stadium, and I was very impressed with the quality of the stands.

The game was live on the local cable TV station. It was exciting, especially in the fourth quarter. The first half was looking like it would go easily to my dad's school team, but I and many other local fans were wrong because we thought we would win by a lot, but we actually won by four points. The other school scored a touchdown 42 seconds from the end, and if they got the ball back from an onside kick, we could have been in trouble.

I had a great time cheering on the high-school team, and all the fans of the team were delighted to see the school getting into the area final.

Martin's prior journal entries

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