15 Jun The way our alleys should be

This photo almost makes me think I’m looking at Italy, or some other soccer-loving country, where young boys can be found kicking a ball around in an alley. (Update: my coworker thinks it looks more like Brooklyn than Italy — it’s beside the point. It just looks cool)

In reality, it’s three young boys that took a break from watching the USA vs. England game last Saturday in Nord Alley in Pioneer Square (apparently 90 minutes is a really long time if you’re younger than 10). It didn’t take long for a few more kids from the crowd to come and join them. It was really nice to not only see the alley being activated, but to see kids in Pioneer Square on the weekend.

For those of you who don’t already know, the International Sustainability Institute has organized World Cup Soccer events every day in Nord Alley. Even though it was an extremely sunny afternoon, a fairly large crowd still came out on Saturday to watch the game.

I am training for the Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon (coming up in just two weeks) and had just finished a 10 mile run about halfway through the match. Although I was sorely tempted to just relax on my couch and watch the game, I’m glad I made my way down to the alley. The atmosphere of the crowd (including a group of young men from Africa) was exhilarating.

If you work down there or live down there, take some time to catch one of the 11:30am games. Last Saturday, Delicatus brought out two food options for game day, and other vendors have been showing up throughout the week.

(so disappointed that my camera ran out of batteries right before a little girl and boy came to join the group)

On a related note, the US is putting a bid in for the the 2014/2018 World Cup and Seattle is one of the host cities if we get selected!

There is an online petition to you can sign to encourage the FIFA (world soccer association) to give the tournament to the US.

We know that Seattle has the best soccer fans in the country and consistently set records for attendance — so don’t just sign the petition to bring it to the US, sign the petition to bring World Cup to Seattle! Right now, they have 30,767 and rumor has it they’re trying to reach at least 100,000.

UPDATE

Here is a link to the Alley Art page with the schedule and pictures. ISI has also posted some fantastic pics from the alley events on a flickr page here.