Day 5

Today was the futbol game day, so we decided to take it relatively easy to rest up for the big match. We went back up to La Rambla and another neighborhood, Raval. It was Sunday, so a lot of shops and galleries were closed, but we found a plaza that was setting up an artist's market, and--needless to say--I was very excited about it. We got a pair of volcanic rock earrings for Trevor's boss, Susan, and I got a shawl-ish/cape-ish jacket (it's adorable, really). There was a huge "gato" in the middle of the plaza, and after I gave it a smooch for this photo, some young Spanish boys asked me (excitedly and in Spanish [Trevor had to tell me what on earth they were asking me to do...] to take a photo with one of them. I felt sort of famous and dorky--it was fun.




We took a siesta, geared up for the game in our Barcelona togs (Trevor in his new Eto'o jersey, me in our new Barcelona scarf and my team socks) and took the Metro up to Camp Nou. We couldn't sit together, but Trevor was just behind me in the next row, so it was all just fine. The weather was perfect: a bit chilly towards the later evening, but clear skies and no wind. Trevor explained to me that whistling is a "boo" instead of a "yahoo!" noise, which I was glad about since I'm an excited whistler. We did a lot of cheering, we held up a colored sheet of paper and tried to sing along with the rest of the stadium while they sang the team song, and we had a wonderful time. Barcelona lost to Real Madrid (boooooooooo!), but it was so exciting to be there, and the game was great.







We did not take this video, but it shows the "mosaic" cheer that we were able to participate in.



And this is a video of the sad yet beautiful goal that won the game for Real Madrid.