Advertisement
Published: October 9th 2013
Saturday night is Barca night by Mike OK so I have been totally indulged here. Michelle lets me buy three tickets at €90 each (a bargain I say)…we make Sat Oct 5 a drop dead day to get to Barcelona and sacrifice all things to get here on time.
I booked the tickets last night and all things seem in hand. We did have to get the tickets physically because I couldn’t print the e tickets but that’s OK…
We arrive at camp site and book in – I look at the timetables and last train leaves at midnight…no way we will make it. “What ways to get into and out of Barcelona?” I ask. Taxi out – apparently horrendous cost and they aren’t allowed to go in farther than the airport already?!
We tentatively decide to go in and see what happens…bus to Estacione, Train In…we had talked about and finally agreed we weren’t going to get a cab back to Villanova at midnight on a Sat night so I go on line on the train and book at Novotel St Joan Despi about 4km from the stadium for a couple of hundred bucks…safety first eh?!
Get off train and Metro to Collblanc where we get to ticket office and pick up tickets yay!!!
Then get supplies and flag down cab. He picks us up half an hour after drop off and back into town.
We look around, walk up the street and Michelle picks a place to eat before the match. I’m surprised because the boys out front are drinking it up, singing songs, accosting the people walking past on the street. That’s ok - we go in and order a Paella for us to share and a hotdog for Jake.
I couldn’t resist and told a few locals I was up from NZ and no sooner had I said something than they rallied up as a group start singing and put their arms around me…Forca Barca!! We are singing songs and having a great old time. Even after the frivolity I am still high fiving and shaking hands with the crew. Awesome. I am a pig in muck!
Shop in the stalls prior to match. Go upstairs and ramp. No smoking or drinking. No Messi, no Puyol. We have great seats – half way and high J
Everyone
is singing and talking and there is a cool buzz in the ground. The teams come out. Lots of Cheers. They announce starting line ups. Piquet – Hooray! Neymar – Hooray! Xavi – Hooray! Iniesta – Hooray!
The atmosphere makes you giddy.
Who turns up but our guests from an hour ago? Three rows in front!
Awesome.
There is a crew behind the Northern goal – they lead the crowd. The game goes into pre-match ritual. Barca song…the Haka might be great – but the crowd singing Barca must be truly intimidating for visitors.
The game starts – you could tell in the warm up that Barca is more skilled, sharper and united. They start knocking the ball around, triangles, in and out – the beautiful game. The crowd is singing… scandal! – after half an hour the imposters score?! WTF?! The crowd’s reaction is amazing – they just start chanting Barca Barca, Barca! No negative – all Barca. I know I am starting to sound like a stuck record but it is my best account of the night.
Three minutes later we equalise and then we watch the opposition get slowly screwed…a joyful
death. Second half – 2,3,4.
Barcelona demonstrates strength, organisation, skill, calm and fluency. They are the best team in the world. Michelle even said she enjoyed every minute – “the skillage was amazing”.
Jacob is watching Piquet’s every move. Strength and Dominance. Shut everything down. Deliver a simple pass to your skilful team mates and let the show roll on.
All the time singing when you’re winning.
Game ends – it’s raining – we scramble for cabs – no luck until Jacob runs across the road from a nightclub and nabs one. Young legs – yay!
We are back at the hotel by 1am. Arrive with a sports tour group from Australia…AVOID
In bed and ready for a sleep in but as Frank Valli said – Oh what a night! Forca Barca!!!!
PS Barca is the best team in the world… Liverpool is the greatest team in the world… End of story
Wax museum – Jacob After the Barca game we were too tired the next day to be bothered going to the markets. While we were wandering up and down the markets we saw a booth that was
labelled ‘Wax Museum’. We were so tired we all just grunted at each other and we all understood that the Wax Museum would be a good idea.
We bought the tickets and then we half dawdled in. We saw two statutes at the top and we thought the C3-PO from Star Wars was cool, but the Superman looked horrible. We then continued up the stairs to see some past popes greeting us. That was followed by us walking into a room full of Royals, Generals and such. Then we walked into an expansive hall to see Hitler and other fallen Leaders and High ranking officers.
We then followed this couple into a room full of “Thinkers” consisting of Scientists and such. Including Einstein. Close to them were a bunch of famous composers.
Mostly though we saw a LOT of people we didn’t know that were tied into Spanish history. Over-all my favourite part of the whole experience was seeing how life-like most of the models were compared to the original person.
Ps. we got our picture taken and our faces computer ma jiggied onto a picture. It was cool.
Pss. I learned that this is
a real thing. Pss’ing is real.
Psss. This is also real.
Pssss. Im totally not just writing random stuff now to make my block of writing seems larger and more impressive than it really is.
The sun in Europe is weak.
Random ramblings by Michelle Hola! So I’ve been making notes about random things on a separate page that don’t really relate too much in particular. I guess you could call it the Seinfeld moment of my travels. So here are some of my rambling thoughts/ideas so far… If I cause any offense it is unintentional, this is not a culture bashing just a surprise as to the cultural differences.
In many respects I feel like we have travelled back in time. In terms of architecture and olde worlde culture I get it. In terms of life in NZ I also feel like we have travelled back in time.
Litter – I can’t believe how much the Europeans just biff rubbish to the side of the road. Classic case of the psychology phenomenon of social anonymity whereby the larger the social group the more deviance from social norms given the
reduced opportunity to be caught or discovered. This I discover applies to many aspects of European life!
Graffetti is also much more prolific than we are used to back home. Some of it is ‘art bombing’ but the fact remains the majority of it is illegal and unwarranted.
Everybody in Europe is born with an unlit ciggy hangin out their mouth! Well no, not really but smoking here is like it was in NZ back in the 80’s. As an ex smoker I’m certainly not judging but observing that everyone smokes, anytime and anywhere and when you see College kids on a break outside smoking up big time well…
Now street hawkers exist in all parts of the world but in different forms. In Dubai and Italy they hound you with the view to breaking you. Be strong and you survive! In Spain they frequent the trains. They come on and silently place a product (typically a packet of tissues or bracelet) and pleading note bedside you but don’t say a single thing. You ignore and ‘nek minute’ they come back and silently remove product and note and move on.
Need to finish up but must make mention of our mate Billy. We think we’ve got Billy boy sussed. He’s an old school boy who doesn’t understand any new roads that have been built. Typical male though he won’t admit he doesn’t know he just blames us for the stuff ups and says we don’t follow instructions. Actually Billy it IS your fault when we go off track cause you are our freebie passenger!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.141s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0516s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Leonie Sykes
non-member comment
Go Barca!
You have enjoyed every minute of your holiday and I have enjoyed every minute reading about it. I love that we can read it from your three points of view. Lucky people getting to watch Barca win. I hope I am as lucky on Dec 7 when I am planning to watch Liverpool v West Ham. Continue to enjoy!