Espana, los campeones!

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Today we decided to try a non-city beach so we asked the front desk staff at our hotel for recommendations of places to go and she recommended a few different beaches and provided us with instructions to get there by train. So after breakfast we set out for the beach, and we definitely weren’t the only ones with the idea. It seemed every person on the train had a beach umbrella in hand. Two trains and an hour or so later we arrived at the beach and found a nice spot close to the water to set up camp. While still crowded, the beach was a little less packed that the city beach we visited previously in Barcelona. After only a few hours of the sun beating down on us we decided we had probably gotten enough sun and packed up to find something for a late lunch before heading back to the hotel to clean up before heading into Barcelona center to watch the World Cup Final in the evening.

After our rest, we caught the 6:30 p.m. bus from the hotel to Montmelo and then caught the 7:01 p.m. train into town. We got off at Passeig de Grácia and walked from there to the Placa de Catalunya where our waiter last night had told us people would be gathering. However, when we arrived at the Placa, there was no signs of this being a gather place for Spanish soccer fans. So again my Spanish came in handy as I asked someone on the street where to go, and they told us Placa de Espanol. So we hopped back on the metro and headed to Placa de Espanol with what seemed like the entire rest of the city. When we arrived at Placa de Espanol it was packed. We could barely see the screens at the front of the Plaza, but the atmosphere was electric. We stayed to watch the beginning of the game and through most of the first half before we decided to go find a restaurant where we might be able to better see the game, and hind-sight this was probably a very good idea, because after Spain won, things likely got very crazy there. It took us a while to find a restaurant that had a table available with a view of a television. It wasn’t the ideal atmosphere for watching a soccer game, but everyone there was there for the same reason, so it was still pretty intense. We enjoyed a meal while watching the rest of the game. And from the moment Spain won in the last minutes of overtime, the people of Spain were celebrating. The restaurant even gave every group in the restaurant a complimentary bottle of champagne to celebrate Spain’s victory which we promptly popped open when we arrived at the train station and enjoyed while waiting for our train back out to the suburbs. We caught one of the last trains back out to the suburbs and arrived in Granollers station at nearly 1 o’clock in the morning and walked out to absolute mayhem. Bottle rockets were being shot off in every direction, people were running through as the fireworks were exploding, people were up on top of statues, swimming in fountains, and blowing up what I can only describe as “bombs”. Growing up in a family where we were required to squat behind a picnic table turned sideways when my dad set off fireworks in our backyard, the whole situation made me feel quite unsafe, but was exhilarating at the same time. I was also concerned about getting a taxi home, we obviously could not get one from the train station because well police had blocked off the entire square in front of it for the fans' celebration. So we carefully crossed the plaza and walked away from the celebration to find somewhere to call a cab from. Luckily we were able to find a hotel and asked the gentleman at reception to call us a cab, and we safely made it home. Turns out I had no reason to worry at all.