Mobs, Riots, and Championships...Good Times!

Trip Start May 14, 2006

Trip End Aug 17, 2006

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Flag of Spain Barcelona, Spain
Friday, May 19, 2006

So yesterday, I spoke of a futbol match between Barcelona & Arsenal (Great Britain team). Well, I was grossly misinformed on exactly how GIANT of a game this was for the city of Barcelona. Evidently, the match was the championship game for Europe's major futbol league. I've heard it been compared to the Super Bowl times ten! So last night, we watched the first half of the match here at our hotel & then left to go to a pub to watch the end. We were delayed somewhat in the Metro & arrived at the area of town that we were told we should watch the match at late. We arrived & to our surprise, there wasn't a soul in sight. A group of us were walking around try to figure out if we had gone to the right place, when out of nowhere a loud eruption of shouts & yells fell upon (we later found out that the uproar was due to the game-winning goal by the Barcelona team) & I kid you not - we were in the mists of hundred of thousands of people within a five to ten minute time span. I was absolute mayhem

Casa Batllo

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The entire city seemed to be celebrating & we were right in the middle. Loud explosions were going off left & right (homemade fireworks), people were drinking and yelling at the top of their lungs - it was chaos. If you can recall the L.A. riots after the Lakers or Raiders won a championship game - I would definitely compare it to that..only BIGGER!

So our group ducked into this small Australian pub & hung out there most of the night. I sampled a few of the local beers & they weren't that bad. We met and talked to several interesting people during the course of the night...People from the U.K., Germany, Poland, Ireland, Scotland, and some locals. It was fun to here them talk about American pop-culture, politics, etc. You would be surprised how much these people know about America & how little we know about their countries. We left the pub around 2:00 am & tried to catch a cab back to our hotel, but the entire city had been shut due to the enormous crowds in the street...so we had to fight our way through the mob & walked a good two & a half miles back to our hotel. What a night! Definitely something that I will remember for the rest of my life. We just so happened to be in the right place at just the right time....

Crazy Guy of The Day!

Moving on to today....I didn't think that the buildings we saw were that great. I don't know if it was the sort of crummy weather or the fact that we were all really tired...it just wasn't that interesting. This morning we visited Richard Meyer's Museum of Modern Art. I pretty much looked like almost every other modern art museum I've ever visited. Thankfully, the exhibits inside were quite amazing, so I didn't really pay that much attention to the building as a whole.

After that, four of us went and had a great three course meal at this small little Italian place. Yum...Italian food yet again. I've eaten more Italian food here in Spain than I have Spanish food. I got quite a shock when we received our bill & I noticed that my Coke cost FIVE EUROS (equivalent to around six US dollars)! Absolutely ridiculous.
This afternoon we had all to ourselves, and I took advantage of catching up on some sleep instead of wandering around the city. I believe it was well worth it, however, I'm still pretty tired.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving Barcelona & heading for Bilbao for a day or two. I'm ready to leave Barcelona because everything is soo expensive here, and I can't afford to spend this much money everyday. Hopefully, we will have the internet at our hotel & I'll be able to make a post once we arrive.

Hope everyone is well. Send me an email if you can!!!

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