world champions.

july 12. this particular day has been an eventful day in my life. i have had some great times on this day, some not so great times, and then i have been in spain. so a little bit of everything. but when i woke up today and realized it was july 12, i thought back on those days for a little bit. crazy how life doesnt seem to wait around for you.
i woke up sunday morning with a nervous feeling. why? oh thats right, its world cup game day. oh no, here we go again. but only one more game spain. one more. and you have it. the "spanish curse" will be broken.
supposedly there is this german octopus that has predicted every single major soccer game correctly for several years except for ONE. legend is that they put 2 different tanks of food in his area of habitat and you designate one tank to say, for example, spain, and then the other tank to say, for example, the netherlands. whichever tank the octopus chooses to eat the food from is the team that will win the game that day. the octopus chose the tank that was designated to spain. hm, interesting. everyone liked the idea of it, but no one wanted to jinx anything. i kinda laughed at it all ;)
monica and i slept in on sunday after the long travel day in sevilla on saturday and the late night out. we got up and mosied around for a bit and then watched the office together. funny story. neither of us had EVER watched the office or were interested in it until spring quarter of this last school year. we BOTH started watching it from SEASON 1 at the BEGINNING of SPRING quarter. how crazy is that?! we thought it was funny.
we then got ready for the pool and made the 20 minute walk down the quiet streets to the pool. i had not yet been to the pool but when i got there, whoa. what a sweet pool it was. it was an olympic sized pool with blue water that was crystal clear. perfect for another 100 degree + day. we layed our towels out and read for a little then got too hot to stay in the sun, so we made our way to the pool. we swam around and chatted and monica got out again while i stayed in. i was hanging out at the edge of the pool when this younger spaniard guy approached me and began talking to me. "ugh...." is what i thought because im the last girl that wants someone to interrupt me when im relaxing in a pool on a hot day. "just leave me alone....." is what i thought. turns out the guy was only semi creepy and we had a good conversation, all in spanish. he spoke probably about 20 words of english. so that forced me to step up my spanish game. about 10 minutes into the conversation he said, "you speak spanish very well." wait, WHAT?! YES!!!!!!!! no one has ever told me that. YAY! mission accomplished. get a compliment from a spaniard about my spanish speaking: check.
after a few hours, i decided to head back home to get ready for the big game. as i was walking back by myself, i realized how quiet the streets were. it was another day where the tension that was to come was just looming over the city. i thought to myself, "ha, if they win tonight, the streets will look NOTHING like this!" ;)
got home, put my Xavi camiseta (jersey) on and headed out the door for one of the bars we were meeting the group at.
we sat down and the bar quickly got crowded. pre game stuff was on and the announcers kept saying how they thought very highly of spains team, but that they weren't sure if they would be able to pull it off for the night. this is when my hands started to sweat and my legs wouldnt stop shaking. i. was. so. nervous.
my dad once told me that when the mariners were in the playoffs in 1995, he remembered sitting in our living room watching the game and being soooo nervous that his hands were dripping sweat because of the intensity of the game.
well, fortunately, mine were not DRIPPING sweat, but they were sure close. i must get the anxiety of watching sports from my dad because i swear, out of all of us girls, i was by far the one who was freaking out the most about this game. i was SO SO SO SO close to getting up out of that bar and watching the game from outside. i almost couldnt sit down because my feet kept shaking and my hands were getting sweaty. the only thing that kept me from walking out of that bar was the fact that the girls would have thought i was an idiot for being THAT nervous. "chill out katie, its just a game." yeah well tell my feet and hands that!
i honestly felt like i was like the mom of one of the players. so so so nervous for her son! i actually started thinking about the fact that i have always wanted boys and i started thinking that may be i shouldnt want to have boys because if i do then they will probably be athletic and play sports and i would have to go through this anxiety every week at their saturday morning soccer games. ay ay ay, i was a nervous wreck.
the game started and was on its way. ok. not only was i a nervous wreck for spain to win, but i was starting to get EXTREMELY upset at the netherlands' team. the fact that they thought spains players' feet were the ball about 37 times made me want to punch each one of them in the face. also, the fact that during one play, one of the players (oh whoopsies, "accidentally") confused alonso's CHEST FOR THE BALL, kicking him STRAIGHT ON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHEST KNOCKING THE WIND OUT OF HIM, just about made me scream and go grab that t.v. and throw it out the window. i was getting so frustrated with the netherlands' cheap shots, lack of class, terrible acting whenever they fell and just overall making this final game super physical. those frustrations made me want spain to win even more. for all of you out there who STILL wanted the netherlands to win after their pathetic unsportsmanlike behavior, i question your civility.
well, the 70 minute mark didnt prove to be spains time to take the lead in this game, so as i saw the 70 minute mark come and go, then the 80 minute mark, then the 90, i got even more heated. the last thing i wanted to see was a physically demanding sports match such as soccer end with penalty kicks. penalty kicks do nothing to prove the overall skill of team.
the game ends with the score: 0-0. oh gosh, overtime.
two 15 minute halves to come. then, if its still tied, penalty kicks. oh gosh bring on the randy olson sweaty hands.
the first half passes, still 0-0.
the second half comes, and its looking like it will go to penalty kicks. shoot.
oh wait.....
3 minutes left before penalty kicks, spain advances the ball down the field, baldie #6 gets the ball, shoots from a terribly difficult angle and, oh, wait, what?????
GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ESPANA IS UP 1-0!!!!!!!
i couldnt believe my eyes. did it actually happen? why yes, yes it did!
i jumped up probably about 3 feet into the air and freaked out, as did everyone else in that bar. i got so excited that the watch around my wrist FLEW OFF ME and landed somewhere i couldnt find. after celebrating for a bit, i started walking around the dark bar in search of the watch that has been one of my best friends while here. i literally couldnt find it! i made my way to the OTHER SIDE OF THE BAR and found it up against the wall, about 15 feet from where i was standing. oops. well hey, i was excited.
now all spain had to do was hold the lead for another 3 minutes. COME. ON. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.
game over, spain wins.
YES!!!!
wow, is this actually happening?
last December, i couldnt decide where i wanted to study abroad. i was torn between ireland, the safe option. the country that spoke english and had a ton of hot irish men to speak in english with. or, spain, the country that was definately the risky option. the country that didnt speak english but yes, did speak the language i was studying, but oh wait, they spoke it with this "extremely difficult accent that makes spanish in spain much different than spanish in the U.S."
what was it that told me to go to spain? to this day, i dont know. but one day, after being absolutely torn for quite some time, i just remember saying, "meh. im goin to spain."
nice choice, katie.
funny how i am here for this short window of time and spain wins their first world cup ever. sweet. timing like that doesnt always happen. i am very fortunate.
we took some pictures in the bar, the bartender brought around free shots for everyone, then we left to go join the party in the streets. and, well, basically anywhere you ended up, there was a party.
right when we got out onto the street, we once again, heard the faint noises of honking, screaming, and oh whats that? fireworks? yes, fireworks, too. ohhhhhhhhh gosh!
we made our way around the mobs of people, literally, mobs of people. everyone and their dog (seriously) were out on the streets. i saw plenty of 2-7 year old kids out celebrating too at 11 at night, because if you didnt know, in spain, it is absolutely customary for kids ages 2-whatever to be out well past midnight. soooo weird to see.
we walked around for about an hour and made our way to one of the more popular squares in town. streets were closed to traffic and the police were out everywhere. they closed off one of the main fountains because people have climbed up it during celebrations before. but their attempts to close it off had failed as i saw people running by the policemen to climb to the top of the fountain to stake the spanish flag. about 5 had made it up successfully and eventually were pulled down by the cops and hauled away to who knows where.
i was sad i didnt get to experience the fireworks on the 4th of july in the u.s. this year. but boy i will tell you, i got my show of fireworks that night.
the spaniards are also especially fond of the dynamite that you light and that only makes the loud BOOM after everyone thinks it was just a defective firework. those ones made me jump a few times as one time, someone lit it about 10 feet from where i was standing.
i felt bad for my friend aileen that night.
we were standing in the crazy square as a rather heavy man behind us began climbing a tree. we all kind of saw him out of the corner of our eyes but didnt think much of it. suddenly, SNAP. the entire branch of the tree that was supporting his body fell of the tree and landed on all of us. fortunately, we all got the soft branches. unfortunately for aileen, the hard wood of the tree hit her right behind her ear. i was worried at first as she held her head for a few minutes and didnt respond when we asked her if she was ok. after about 10 seconds, she looked up and said, "yeah im fine! but what the hell?! did i just get hit by a tree!?!?!?!" hahahahahahaha. only in spain.
the spaniards sure know how to celebrate. you could tell the difference between the spaniards and everyone else because they would run around jumping and yell in unison, "yo soy espanol, espanol, espanol! yo soy espanol, espanol, espanol!" (i am spanish, spanish, spanish! etc.) i sincerely wanted to join in with them, but i knew i couldnt as i am obviously a little white american girl! so we would just jump around and be like, "yeah! woot! alright spain!" hahaha.
i bought a flag that night too. its a pretty big one. i had it draped around my back along with my spanish jersey and my face paint.
pretty sure the spaniards liked seeing us all decked out as a few of them would grab my hand during the night and kiss it. they were all probably drunk and didnt know what they were doing. ;)
the excitement got SO HIGH at one point that i seriously turned to monica and told her that i would go kiss a random spaniard if she ran around with only the flag on. she said she would have to have more drinks to do that but she really liked the idea of me kissing a spaniard. it was a bad idea to propose the deal to her because throughout the rest of the night, she kept pointing out cute spaniards for me "to go kiss!" hahaha. but let me tell you, i was SO close to doing it a few times! but the last thing i want is to kiss a guy, then have his girlfriend jump out from behind him and pelt me in the face. with my luck, that would so happen. nah, i decided to keep it PG. ;)
we were standing around taking pictures and i double taked as i saw 2 guys running down the street across from us with their pants OFF!!!!! "look!" as i pointed to them. the girls all looked and soon after turned away. the girls were pretty disgusted by it but i thought it was kinda funny. hey! how many times does your country win a world cup?! if the u.s. ever wins, i just MIGHT do something equally insane. boy were those guys proud of their country!
it was about 2:30 a.m. and the crowds were only getting crazier and more drunk. so some of us decided to call it a night as you can only see bare butts, fireworks and people climbing trees/sculptures so many times before you have seen it all. ;)
monica, aileen, brett and eric decided to head down to the river to see what was happening there. man, if i would have known they were going to the river, i would have gone too because of what happened once they got there.
i guess they were on their way when all the sudden someone comes up behind aileen, puts his head between her legs and lifts her onto his shoulders!! the first words out of her mouth, "ah!!! where the heck are you taking me?!!?" hahahahaha. wish i could have seen that. so. funny. after a few minutes, he put her down and ran off and all she could do was look at monica and go, "what?!" hahaha!
they all finally got to the river and people were literally jumping. in. the. river. yes, the river thats water is brown all the way through. eeeeewwwwwwwwwww. they watched people jump for a while until eric and brett decided to jump in.
after some spaniards egged on aileen and monica, they decided to jump too. SHOOT! I WOULD HAVE JUMPED WITH THEM!!!! hahahaha. but man, what a night for aileen. she gets hit by a tree, picked up by a random spaniard and gets pressured to jump in a river. what a sport. ;)
as i walked home that night and the noises of the streets became a bit more faint, i took it all in and considered myself very lucky to join in on this nationwide celebration as a well deserved team unified their country and made them all proud to be spaniards.
job well done espana!
top night, top night for sure. ;)