Que Tal? (What's up?)
Days seven, eight and nine all kind of blended into one
super long day for me, so I’m going to write them just like
that for you…
Tuesday was my day off so I went ahead and took care of some
things I needed to get done. Early in
the day, I went with a couple kids from the group to buy cell phones. “Movistar” is the company that makes the
rechargeable go-phones over here, so we all went there and bought the old
school flip-phones circa 1998 and put about $20 worth of minutes on there,
which included free Movistar-to-Movistar minutes for the duration of our time
here. Pretty good deal if you ask
me. Now we can finally make plans on the
fly and meet up at different spots in the city instead of always having to meet
up in person at the dorms to talk about where we should go. Much, much easier.
From there, me and my new friend Scott decided to finally
make a trip to Corte Ingles, the 4-story Walmart/Macy’s/Sax 5th/CVS
super-store I told you about. He needed
to buy some shampoo and stuff and I wanted to look for a wireless router to use
in the dorms, so we made the walk across town and were blown away by what we
found: the first level is a huge department store filled with tons of expensive
designer clothes and looks just like a mall.
From there, you can either take the escalator down to a GIANT
supermarket in the bottom, that is just as big and fully-stocked with American
goods and brands as you would find in any grocery store in the States. This is where he bought his shampoo and
shaving cream and a few other smaller things.
The prices weren’t great, but worth it for the brands we know and
trust. The deodorant here is especially
weird with the whole roll-on ball-thing, and the toothpaste is extra pasty! Yuck! When
my supply runs out, I’ll be doing the same.
From there, we took the escalator back up and breezed right
through floors 2, 3, and 4, which were more mall-type clothing stores: just
racks and racks and racks of super expensive dresses and suits and all
that. Nothing that interested us. Above that, though, we found the best floor
of all: Sporting Goods—just sports stuff as far as the eye can see: soccer
jerseys from every major team in the whole world—English, Spanish, and Italian
club teams PLUS National team jerseys for ALL the World Cup teams—as well as
rows and rows of the nice Nike and Adidas cleats. More than that, they also had a biking
section with tons of bikes and all kinds of equipment, skiing and snowboarding
gear, football, basketball, baseball, and tennis stuff, golf clubs, boating
gear, tents, backpacks, and all kinds of camping gear, scuba diving and
snorkeling stuff, and tons and tons of other things too! Seriously, it was the holy grail of sporting
good stores! Very, very impressive. The whole store takes up and entire city
block by itself, so you can imagine how big it was!
I spent most of my time in the soccer section of course, and
actually ended up buying a new pair of soccer shoes so I can play futsal again. They were pretty nice Nike ones on sale for
19 euros, so I went ahead and bought them since I don’t wanna mess up the only
pair of running shoes that I brought.
From there, we ran a few other errands and made it
back to the dorms for dinner and nothing else noteworthy happened.
Wednesday, though, was the first day of REAL class—not just
orientation-type stuff. My first 9-5 was
pretty tough, I have to admit, but I got through it. I ended up volunteering to go first in the
presentation schedule in BOTH of my Spanish Lit classes, which means one’s due
on Monday (Yes, this Monday) and the
other on Wednesday. I’ll have a pretty
stressful next couple days preparing for those, but I feel good knowing that
after that, I won’t have much else to worry about for the rest of the
semester. That will be a very good
feeling.
I was pretty dead after class but managed to stay awake all
the way until dinner-time at 8:30. After
eating a huge meal of “Spanish pizza” (flatbread with marinara and cheese and
lots and lots of ham) I crashed pretty hard and slept for a good 11 hours. Woke up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle
my…day off.
I hung out on my balcony for a few hours this morning and
read some of Hemingway’s stories that he wrote during his time in Spain. After that, I had breakfast and showered and
made the walk across town to buy my ticket to the big soccer game tonight. What I didn’t realize was that the game was
not only #3 vs. #4 in La Liga, but also a rivalry match between the two local teams
here in Valencia AND ON TOP OF THAT a quarterfinal match in the Copa Del Rey,
the annual tournament of all the club teams here in Spain. LOTS of bragging rights on the line. And it only cost me 15 euros!
After buying my ticket, I walked back to the dorm and had
lunch and then we all met in the lobby to go on our voluntary excursion for the
day—a trip to the local cathedral (the one with the big crowd in the
pictures). We made the short walk over
there, then realized that the only thing we really cared about, since we had already
seen a few other cathedrals, was checking out the view from the top of the huge
tower. So we climbed and climbed and
climbed and climbed…and climbed some more.
The super old (circa 1400) marble spiral staircase just kept going and
going and going, but final we made it to the top and found this incredible
view:
Impressive, eh? It
was absolutely awesome. The breeze was
great and the sights even better. In
this picture, you can see the soccer stadium in the distance.
It was a lot of fun, but right at 5:00 the BIG bell at the
top rang out and almost made us all deaf!
Loudest thing I’ve ever heard!
After that, I came back to the dorms and did a bit of work
for my presentation on Monday. Then at
8:30 we had dinner and rushed across
the city to make it on time for the BIG game.
The crowd moving in towards the stadium reminded me of any
major college football game you’d see in the U.S: just a mass of people moving
towards the giant, cement structure, but instead of red and black jerseys, everyone was wearing red and
yellow and blue scarves—the colors of
my new team, Valencia C.F. Inside, we
climbed alllll the way to the very top to our seats, peaking through to every
section entrance that wasn’t ours, catching little glimpses of the perfectly
green field and insanely raucous crowd.
I was barely able to contain my excitement! My first European soccer match! What a huge moment!
Finally we made it to our sections and this is what we found:
The stadium was rocking with the chants and cheers and songs
of both teams—an incredible atmosphere.
The two bigger sides were packed full with people waving flags and
banners and holding up their scarves, and everyone was yelling, the whole
stadium pulsing with energy and excitement.
I wish I could convey to you how electric it felt. SO much more than any football game I’ve been
to back home. Add to that the intense rivalry and blood-hatred between
these two local teams and everything riding on the line, and it’s hard to
imagine a better sporting atmosphere. I
was blown away, enamored by it all.
The game was really exciting too, with lots of close shots
and bad calls and fancy moves and nice saves.
Valencia ended up winning 4-1, but it was much closer than that. The best part was when one of Valencia’s
players got fouled really hard in the corner nearest to us, and the crowd went
absolutely nuts. The ref gave the
Levante player a yellow card, and then on the very next play, right off the
free kick, Valencia scored and the crowd went nuts again…this time twice as
loud! Confetti fell everywhere and
everyone was highfiving and flicking off and cursing at the Levante section! It was the coolest moment of sports I’ve ever
been apart of! As a lifelong soccer fan, it was an unforgettable experience!
After the game, we followed the crowd out into the streets,
singing the Valencia victory song in unison.
Very, very cool.
Not sure what’s in store for tomorrow. I think I’ll try to get some work done in the
morning, then grab lunch and head out to El Rio to play a bit of soccer of my own. The weather forecast is 65 and sunny—doesn’t
get much better than that!
As always…much love to all.
C
OH and P.S. Check out the pictures I added to Days 1 and 2!
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