Soccer! Barcelona! SOCCER!

Playing around in the FC Barcelona Megastore =) Bought myself the official team scarf! You'll see me with it later.

Hello, I'm back! Well, technically I've been "back" for a week now, but once again I get caught up with friends, school, etc, so I've neglected to tackle the immense task of blogging my vacation in Barcelona! Our school had its fall break from Thursday to Monday, and my friend Perla and I had been planning our vacation to Barcelona for weeks. We went by bus, leaving Thursday at noon and coming back Monday evening. It was seriously a dream vacation, with so much fun, exploration, touristy stops, and non-touristy adventures that it would be near impossible to record it all. So I've decided to, over the next few days, give you my favorite moments and experiences of the week.

So, why Barcelona, and not Rome, Paris, Belgium, etc? After all, Barcelona's pretty close. Well, this weekend happened to be oh-so-convenient to see my FIRST EVER PROFESSIONAL SOCCER GAME. Yesssss! And well, although I don't pretend to be an expert in every soccer team playing in the European leagues, I do have a thing for Barcelona. So, obviously, I was so there. The game was on Saturday at 10 PM. A bit bizarre, no? But it gave us plenty of time to explore the city all day, including the FC Barcelona museum, cook dinner, drink coffee, then come back for the coolest part of the trip. It's probably not a good thing that I went to this game as my first one; the others have a LOT to live up to!

Earlier that day we went to the FC Barcelona museum and stopped by the store as well. The museum was a soccer junkie's dream, and I think I may have spent waaaay too much time in there: but there were interactive touch screens with all kinds of history and clips, memorabilia, trophies, and giant screens spanning an entire hallway that played an amazing program of Barcelona's recent run. It was a lot of fun :)

Referee whistle from the good ol' days. Oh, how times have changed.

 The boots of one of the first ever Barcelona players. Smelly, I bet.

 All hail Messi! (Check out the Ballon d'Or on the left - he's the current holder, and he's only 23!)

I'll spare you more photos and get to the good stuff: the game! Huge stadium, one of the biggest in the world...Camp Nou hold 98,000 people (thank you, museum!), and it was honestly 90% full that night...if not more. It was Barca - Sevilla, and the final score was Barca 5, Sevilla 0. Easy game, but definitely not boring in the least! The stadium was packed, and everyone was really into the game. There were tons of cheers and chants (in Catalan, not Spanish!), and it was just an all around good time. I'm so happy I got to experience that. And, if I'm being honest, I was watching the referees just as much as the players. Ah, what can I say? They were quite stylish (and excellent). Definitely the experience of the weekend. Football fans have got it going on. At one point in the game we did the wave around the entire stadium - at least 4 or 5 times before it finally died down. Not to mention the craziness each time we scored (Messi scored twice - he's amazing!) or a fould was missed/didn't go our way. Listening to an older Spanish man behind us curse was super amusing.

Unoficcial cheerleaders. They were the coolest folks at the stadium, hands down! Nonstop fun, flags, drums, the wave...

Even I think this looks fake. But we was there! Promise! =)

Just before kickoff. Full house!

Modeling my scarf before the game. With more scarves. They were everywhere, and in endless varieties!

Until next time, hope you one day become good enough at what you do that guys in suits can come wipe your nose on-field.