Visca Barça!
I've sorely lacked the joy of major sporting celebrations in my lifetime. It doesn't help that most of my teams have been pretty lame over the years: oh, sure, the Padres (who, incidentally, moved into first place last night) have made it to a couple of World Series and the Chargers made it to one Super Bowl, but neither team has won it all and most of the the time they've been just plain bad. I was lucky enough to have both UCLA and Duke win NCAA basketball championships, and I shared in Gretchen's excitement when the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, but none of those happened when I was there, so I missed the celebrations. Probably the closest I've come is living in New York when the Yankees won a World Series and I went to the ticker tape parade since it went by my office, but I really hate the Yankees and, frankly, championships are ho-hum for Yankee fans so it doesn't really count. (Oh, and how can I forget the dominance of the San Diego Sockers in indoor soccer when I was a child? Now THAT was a team!)
Well, this weekend we got a real taste of championship excitement in Barcelona. We learned that FC Barcelona could clinch the Spanish Primera Liga title, and that if they did, the fans would gather at the top of the Ramblas for a celebration. After a nice evening wandering the old streets of the La Ribera neighborhood, drinking wine and dining on delicious tapas, we were walking back to our hotel when we heard a symphony of car horns, firecrackers, etc. Since we were near the Ramblas, we thought we would head over and see what was going on. It was after midnight, but people of all ages were pouring into the area, with everyone dancing, singing, chanting, cheering, waving flags, etc. It was probably one of the most jubilant scenes we've been a part of, although we tried to stay out of the crush of people at the heart of the celebration. By the time we got back to our hotel at 1:30am, the streets were still filled with cheering fans and honking cars, and we were on what would normally be considered a quiet street well north of the noisiest area.
We figured that was it, but the next afternoon we were riding on a bus through the main square in town, Plaça Catalunya, and noticed that there were thousands of people milling about, most wearing red and blue and waving flags. We were told that the team would be riding in from the stadium shortly for a victory parade, which also happened to be going near our hotel. So we found a nice tapas bar right along the parade route and waited. When the team bus finally came by, with Ronaldinho, Eto'o, and Henrik Larsson in front, it was like seeing the fan reaction on early films of the Beatles. Good fun all around.
Well, this weekend we got a real taste of championship excitement in Barcelona. We learned that FC Barcelona could clinch the Spanish Primera Liga title, and that if they did, the fans would gather at the top of the Ramblas for a celebration. After a nice evening wandering the old streets of the La Ribera neighborhood, drinking wine and dining on delicious tapas, we were walking back to our hotel when we heard a symphony of car horns, firecrackers, etc. Since we were near the Ramblas, we thought we would head over and see what was going on. It was after midnight, but people of all ages were pouring into the area, with everyone dancing, singing, chanting, cheering, waving flags, etc. It was probably one of the most jubilant scenes we've been a part of, although we tried to stay out of the crush of people at the heart of the celebration. By the time we got back to our hotel at 1:30am, the streets were still filled with cheering fans and honking cars, and we were on what would normally be considered a quiet street well north of the noisiest area.
We figured that was it, but the next afternoon we were riding on a bus through the main square in town, Plaça Catalunya, and noticed that there were thousands of people milling about, most wearing red and blue and waving flags. We were told that the team would be riding in from the stadium shortly for a victory parade, which also happened to be going near our hotel. So we found a nice tapas bar right along the parade route and waited. When the team bus finally came by, with Ronaldinho, Eto'o, and Henrik Larsson in front, it was like seeing the fan reaction on early films of the Beatles. Good fun all around.
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