Last night was the semi-final 2nd leg of the champions league between Barcelona and Internazionale (for those of you who don't know, this is a HUGE match and 2 very good teams.) Champions league is a europe-wide tournament that takes place apart from the norma leagues in each country and causes some huge matches to take place (i.e. Manchester United Vs. Bayern Munich) and causes many rivalries between the fans of the respective countries.
So last night, sporting my Barcelona Jersey, Werner his scarf and Sophian his hat, we headed out to show our support for our team, BARCA! We always go to this bar around the corner called Merchant's to watch football on the weekends and during the week when there are special matches like this. Usually all the seats are full for bigger matches like Real Madrid or Barcelona beat tonight, you couldn't even walk in this place it was so full. Religion. You could call the bar a place of worship.
Werner and Sophian had been there 1.5 hours before to get us seats, thankfully, and we supported Barca through our enjoyment of the match, roars of ups and downs, and many a cruzcampo pints. As the match went on the tone in the room became less and less cheery as it got closer to the 90th minute and Barca had yet to score. (they had to win 2-0 to advance) in the 84th minute Pique (on a questionable offsides call) put it past Julio Ceasar to put barca up 1-0. THE BAR WENT INSANE. You have all seen what it is like when the hawks score a goal in game 7 or something like that but this is like nothing i've ever seen. People were hugging, high five-ing, kissing, embracing, doing anything with random neighbors at the bar. the rapport of this place was absolutely ridiculous.
At the 90th minute, you could hear a pin drop as stop time began. 4 minutes of stop time (extra time) for delays during the game was all Barcelona had to put in the winning goal. About 2 minutes into stop time, Barca (i couldn't remember who) put it in the net only to have it negated by a hand-ball call which in the replay clearly showed went off his chest and the ref just had a horrible perspective. Hijo de puta.
So barcelona lost and i really think some people were crying. It was saddening for all involved. Afterwards Werner says to me "I need to go out and drink more to forget." he was so upset. So go out we did. After our last pint at Merchant's we headed to Calle Alfafe only to stop at Plaza del Salvador (a local spanish hangout with 1 euro beers) to enjoy the night outside instead of a smokey bar. After a beer or two we ran across some fans wearing inter jerseys, to which we immediately were like, WTF? So we approached them and they hugged us to say sorry that we lost. HAHA. It was so funny. Then we talked with them (all in spanish) about the match and the calls and why they were wearing the wrong jersey.
After saying ciao the the "italians" we began to head to Calle Alfafe. En route we encountered a real McAsshole who wanted to fight us because we were being rowdy and screaming barca through the streets to which werner responded in some crazy spanish i couldn't understand. When spaniards get mad, they talk faster than the speed of light. After getting to the next bar, we discussed the asshole as well as the match some more and headed across to another bar to talk with some people because this one was rather empty. The next bar was a lot of fun.
At our next, and final bar, the place was packed. There was this guy and girl couple sitting at the bar drinking Agua de Sevilla (equivalent to a long island and $20 for a pitcher that rocks your world because its 96% alcohol 4% something else) and Werner and I start talking to them. After about 15 minutes of spanish, 3-4 more beers, Werner tells me, "I want to take this girl away from this guy because she's hot and i'm way better than him" HAHA. To which i said, are you trying to get your ass kicked?! But the girl was a fan of Real Betis (shitty) and we agged on a little rivalry chant between betis-barca.
After interacting with spaniards all night and receiving a few compliments about how well i could speak even though i've only been here since january (wow) we decided it was time to head home. On the way home, we started the chant again and we were pretty pissed at this point. The walk home, to which took much longer than it should have due to frequent bathroom breaks and during the walk we may have pushed all the dumpsters into the middle of the street, who knows if that was us or not. Just before getting to our street some guy got out of his car and started chasing us, but luckily we just ran into our house and he didn't know where we went. I kind of felt like I was in Green Street hooligans for a night between all the beer, football, rapport and ruckus.
After getting home, enjoying a Weisbier and talking to Renee for a while, it was time to pass out. I couldn't tell you what time it was but i would guess past 4. And here i lay, still in bed at 1:30 because Im DONE WITH MY INTERNSHIP and have nothing to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays from now on besides study. Today I'm packing and off to meet up with Laurent and stay with his family in PARIS!! I'm pretty pumped to meet them, see Paris and chill with Laurent.
What a great start to a great weekend and a great way to enjoy the closing weeks of this insane semester in Spain and Europe.
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