New Year’s Day is one of those typical days of the year. A bit groggy from the night before, you slowly wake up. At some point you visit the neighbors and they visit you in order to exchange the formalities. To be honest, those are not the most exciting times. One thing that comes back every year, and strangely became part of Dutch tradition, is watching the ski jumping competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on television. You can guess it by now, I had to change this tradition and watch it live!

In Argentina football is religion they say. It is not only the number one sport but people live it. When travelling around, it soon becomes clear everybody supports a team. The majority support River Plate and Boca Juniors, the two most successful teams of the last decades. There are a couple of other major teams located in the capital like San Lorenzo and Velez Sarsfield. However, if you’re looking for a team with a lot of history, Independiente is the one to visit…

The calendar of snooker has three major tournaments. The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield is home to the world championships and the Barbican Centre in York is the place to be each December if the UK Open is what you’re looking for. Mid January the remainder of the three, the Masters, is being played. I had never been to the Masters before and Ronnie was doing well, so why not try to get some tickets for a quick weekend break…

Previously in Buenos Aires I had visited matches of River Plate and Boca Juniors, the two most famous teams of the country. While these were nice experiences, especially River Plate (I don’t like Boca!), I wanted to have a more local experience this time. San Lorenzo was the chosen one…

When visiting a foreign country I always like to absorb some of the local country. For me that doesn’t mean checking out all the museums, no, I prefer to live the area. In other words, I enjoy trying the local food, walking around in different areas, listening to local music, etc. That way I’m trying to get a feel of local culture. Sports is part of that, so when I visited Bangkok some Muay Thai boxing was on the agenda…

To say goodbye to my good friend Jelle before leaving on my one-year trip, a little city trip had to be planned. Not a regular city trip, visiting a foreign soccer-match is the way we say goodbye. We’d already been to England, Spain and Italy, so a ‘Bundesliga spiel’ seems a logical choice!

In May 2012 I went to Bangalore, India for business. On my way downtown from the airport I noticed the huge cricket stadium. I kept it in mind and later that week it turned out the playoffs were full on. That Wednesday I witnessed my first cricket match!

In 2005 I visited Canada for the first time. Besides skiing the famous powder snow the Canadian Rockies are famous for, I wanted to see a NHL game. Unfortunately they were on a strike and no games were on offer. In 2011 I had my second attempt…

Having been to the Crucible twice without seeing the greatest cueist of them all in action the PTC in Antwerp looked like a great opportunity to see Ronnie O’Sullivan play. PTCs are smaller tournaments on the snooker agenda but still all the main characters take part. So I booked my train to Antwerp and headed south.

In the 90’s the Chicago Bulls had their glory days with six championship titles. His Royal Airness Michael Jordan was the embodiment of this succesful era. In 2009 nothing was left of this amazing team. Still I couldn’t resist visiting the United Center for a match when I was there…