¡Yo Soy Español(a)! [Nos gusta el fútbol]

The day of reckoning had arrived in Spain. The options: crush Chile, or crush Chile. Losing was not an option, for Spain's position in the group stage of the World Cup was precarious; a loss now would have signaled Spain's explusion from the tournament.

Spain knew this. I could feel it eminating from the streets of Madrid as I walked out of the city's complex metro system. The streets were bustling with people sporting "La Roja" - red jerseys, flags, etc - and talking excitedly with a drink in hand, as if the entire city (and nation, for that matter) had the game on its mind.

As Erica, Kristi, and I walked towards the stadium, where the game was being displayed on a giant screen, the clouds rumbled menacingly. The rain started, thrashing the city with large drops of water, drenching anyone who dared venture out from cover (yes, we got soaked). We popped into a nearby bar for tapas (ie, our dinner) and to watch the start of the game.

Ten minutes into the game, we discovered that the rain had halted, for the moment at least, so we left the shelter of the bar to join the crowd of Spaniards watching the game outside the stadium two blocks away.

As we approached the gates to enter the plaza, packed with thousands of fans clad in Spanish jerseys and flags, the crowd went wild. I couldn´t see the screen, but it was clear that Spain had scored! The crowd waiting to get onto the plaza pushed us through the gates rapidly, heeding little regard for personal space. We were in, swimming in a sea of thousands of red Spaniards cheering their team to victory!

At half time, it started raining again. We snuck under some random people´s umbellas to hide from the large, wet drops raining down from the sky. The rain didn´t dampen the crowd´s spirits one bit!

The game ended in Spain´s victory, securing Spain´s ability to advance to the next round, and the crowd went wild with cheers for Spain, such as:
- Yo soy español, español, español... (repeat)
- Villa Villa Villa, Villa Maravilla! (A cheer for Spain´s star scorer, David Villa)
- Campeones, campeones, ooh ohh, oh, ooh (champions)

As we walked back to the metro to return to our hostal, people were dancing in the streets, cars were honking: the whole city was celebrating! The halls of the metro system were crammed with people pushing, shoving, trying to get onto a train - personal space didn´t really exist. We chose not to board the first train, since there was literally no room, and waited for the next. It arrived shortly after, so we got on and stood there for the next 30 minutes, waiting. The train was not leaving, to everyone´s bewilderment, so we disembarked and proceeded to walk back to our hostal. We wondered if the ongoing strike caused the workers to refuse to service our train, but on our walk home, we discovered that there must have been a technical issue at the next stop.

That was Madrid, almost 3 weeks ago. It took a while to get this written...I´m so slow! No more artistic writing for me...

Anyways, the next Spain game (since I¨m way behind, and talking about soccer):

The next game we watched in Toledo. Spain was up against Portugal, a powerful contender who had crushed North Korea in a 7-0 victory. The word on the streets predicted Spain´s demise, but I had faith that Spain would overcome the obstacles that Portugal would present and continue to the Quarter finals.

This time, I went to the Plaza de Toros, an old stadium which was likely used for bull-fighting. Thousands of locals from the small town gathered in the Plaza to watch the game on a large screen.

I don´t really have an exciting story for this, other than that we beat Portugal (Told ya so!), but it was pretty awesome to experience soccer as a community, which is something that rarely happens in the states. Are there similar venues to watch a game (any sport) as a community in the States, like there are in Spain, where everyone can go watch? There are of course sports bars and house parties, but that´s not quite the same, since it´s a friends and family event, not a community/nation-wide event. Anyways, watching soccer in Spain is pretty awesome and if all goes well, we will beat Germany tonight!

Hasta Luego,
Alejandra