Soccer soccer soccer.

Camp Nou - We visited the five star soccer stadium which is home to FC Barcelona. Soccer was in the off-season during my visit, but there are self-guided stadium tours, a massive store, and a huge museum to lure thousands of fans.

I made my family wake up early so we could be first in line for the tour, which we were. From the outside, the stadium is massive. It seats about 100,000 people, but it has held as many as 120,000 when there were terraces back in the day. The best part of the tour by far is walking out of the players tunnel and up onto the pitch. The club's slogan "Mes que un club" is written across the seats. The upper decks tower over the field. You feel really small on the field. The tour leads you through press rooms, locker rooms, the stadium chapel, the presidential areas, and to the press boxes before guiding you to the museum.

I was expecting a small rinky-dink museum with a few artifacts from the club. Instead, I got a massive lesson on the history of the team that really was more than club. FC Barcelona really stands for the Catalan people and their pride. The club and all it's sporting success in soccer, basketball, hockey, handball, and many other sports shows a lot of resilience and honor that their little corner of Spain is capable of.

The team shop was nuts too. There was everything from FC Barcelona doggy beds to refrigerators. If there was an item that could have an FC Barcelona logo on it, it was for sale. I now regret not buying an FC Barcelona toaster.

My family thought the stadium was cool too. I think they were more impressed by the museum than I was. Camp Nou wasn't just about sport, it was a symbol of Catalonia and Barcelona. I definitely recommend a trip there even if you don't like soccer. It's a history, cultural, and sports lesson all in one.

Estadio Olimpico - This was of course the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 Olympics. It's currently home to Barcelona's second soccer team, RCD Espanyol, but that team has a new stadium on the outskirts of town and won't remain their for very long. We were there for about 10 minutes as we were hiking around Parc Montjuic. It was neat to see and in a beautiful location on the Montjuic mountain.

Soccer in general in Barcelona - Many people in Barcelona had FC Barcelona gear on. It was by far the most popular article of clothing I saw. I only saw one person wearing an RCD Espanyol jersey during the entire trip. I didn't see too many Spanish national team jereseys, despite Spain's triumph in the European championships a week before I arrived.

On TV, soccer was was always the lead sport despite the off-season. Two major events captured most of the news while I was there. First, FC Barcelona's president won re-election, but only narrowly. Eight of the board members quit in protest of his re-election. Second, Ronaldinho, the world's best player from 04-06, was sold to AC Milan in Italy. After this happened, the only sports news on Spanish TV was Ronaldinho highlights.

Wow, I can't believe someone from Spain was mad enough to leave a comment on my first post about Catalonia. I can't believe someone from Spain actually found my blog in a timely manner and read it and commented. Whatever the person said in Spanish seems to be exactly what the Catalonians try to distance themselves from. Anyways, more about Barcelona....

Getting around - Barcelona sort of reminded me of San Francisco. Everything is close, but occasionally you'll want a cab. If I moved there, there's no way I'd get a car, but I might get a scooter. Just walking in some parts of the city is an obstacle course. Driving in the city is nuts. Poorly marked one way streets, a lack of obvious street signs, and crazy frontage roads for bikes and cars turning right make Barcelona a nightmare for tourists to navigate. If you mix that with narrow streets and scooters coming out of nowhere to pass you, driving is a disaster in the making. If you go for a visit, never drive. A six-Euro cab drive, or 30 minute walk can get you anywhere.

Walking was almost always pleasant. Often we'd find the side of the street with shade and just saunter down to our destination. Along the way you can stop for drinks and snacks. Cab drivers will be glad to take you to any major destination because they know they can pick up new riders once they drop you off. They'll really hustle because they can restart the meter on the cab.

We (dad) did drive out of Barcelona on 2 occasions. Once we went to Montserrat (which isn't very well marked, but we found it) and another time we went to Figures near the French border to see the Dali museum. On the way back we traveled a bit down the Costa Brava. Gas is expensive, and if you want to use the freeways, you'll pay a toll. Generally, you'll pay to drive anywhere worthwhile.

Shopping - Shopping as in fashion, was all around our centrally located apartment. A couple blocks to the Northwest (the Passeig de Gracia) were all the trendy designers like Gucci, Prada, & Armani. Directly to our west was the start of La Rambla which was filled with Spanish shops, some international chains (H&M, Puma), and independent boutiques. To the Southeast, (Calle de Balmes) was a fairly luxurious side of town full of boutiques, expensive restaurants, and mostly upper class stores.

The residents of Barcelona generally dressed very well. Most looked like they had just shopped at a fashion show. The dress wasn't pretentious though. It was a sensible and simple style. It was weird seeing guys in suits driving around on scooters. Kids in the city were slaves to American styles. Most either dressed like hip hoppers, wore obnoxious witty slogan shirts, or did an Abercrombie impression. Of course many wore Barcelona FC jerseys too, and I did see a few Pau Gasol Laker jerseys.

The Chicas Hot. Fit.

Television - Early in the morning and during siesta I watched a bit of TV. Spanish TV swung from either loud like Telemundo or quiet like PBS. There wasn't anything in the middle. Most of the time I ignored it and turned on the satellite to watch BBC, SKY, CNN, and France 24-English.

Before heading over to Catalonia, my family knew we'd have to adjust to a different eating and lifestyle. We yanks like to have an early morning breakfast, a lunch, then barrel on through to the end of our work day before going home for dinner at 7:00 or 8:00 PM.

The Catalonians, and Spanish have a different approach that we worked ourselves into. First there is an early morning breakfast (something we never really did wake up for) followed by a day of work until about 2:00. In the early afternoon everyone breaks for a three hour lunch in which the largest meal of the day is typically eaten. We didnt typically comply with this rule. Lunch was usually our Tapas time. Catalonians usually have their tapas time at dinner.

Food in the area wasn't mind blowing or that special. The idea of Tapas seems very exotic and fun, but when you get down to it, it's mostly just meat and potato appetizers that aren't too tasty. They're just filling. Every menu seemed to have Iberian ham, shrimp, french fries, and little sandwiches. While tapas themselves aren't too exciting, not all Tapas are equal.

The tapas in the touristy areas around La Rambla were awful to look at, smell, and eat. Everything had a look of those hot dogs that role around in their own grease under heat lamps at the 7-11. Tapas and food in touristy areas were just gross. If you got off the beaten path however, you could easily find freshly prepared tapas. One of my favorite places was Tapas 24. I had a huge plate of some really good fried anchovies. Our local neighborhood bar, El Roble, had some high quality Tapas too. Pau Gasol even thoguht so!

As for meals that weren't tapas, I never really figured out what Spanish and Catalonian cuisine were. There was definitely a lot of seafood, and meat, but it wasn't prepared that differently than you'd find anywhere else in Europe or the world.

Drinking in Barcelona was pretty good. Sangria was a popular drink for us. Every restaurant had their own way of making it and we had our favorites (nice smooth fruity taste) and non-so-favorites (too much alcohol, not enough mixing.) The only beer Catalonians seemed to drink was Estrella Damm. It's light and not that great tasting. Spaniards just aren't into beer. One day my sister turned me onto Clara which is a mix of Damm and Lemon Fresca. That was definitely a good drink that was really refreshing on warm summer days. I can't wait to recreate it for friends.

One habit the Catalonians had that annoyed me was not finishing their beer. Typically they would drink from their glass until about three quarters of their beer was gone. Then they'd stop and just leave it. Apparently the Spanish are afraid of those last 2 ounces of really light beer getting them completely wasted. No local ever left an empty glass at the table. I tried it once and didn't like the custom.

Finally, the owner of a fondue restaurant turned me onto a drink called Ruavieja. It's a really sweet drink meant to be shot. I brought some bottles back.

My passport stamp says Spain, but If you ask me, I just went to Catalonia. I got back Thursday night and after a few days of fighting jet lag, I'm ready to go. I'll post about some experiences and general thoughts and feelings about the fantastic trip my parents took my sister and me on. I've uploaded my pictures here. I'll be re-organizing them over the next few days.

Our Apartment - Our entire trip centered around Barcelona. We had an apartment in the Gracia district of the city. The neighborhood was very central and had lots of history. Just two blocks away was the start of La Rambla. We could walk to absolutely every location from our apartment, which we did. The neighborhood was a little big eccentric, but also had a lot of high end eateries and shopping.

Gracia is the neighborhood in Barcelona where Catalan revolutionaries would seriously talk about their fight and separation from the rest of Spain. There were a lot of historical markers in the area as well as a few plazas and monuments celebrating this fact. On our street was a locally famous Tapas bar called El Roble, (or affectionately known as El Roure for some reason). There was a cartoon highlighting the bar's importance in the organization of the Catalan leaders and ideals. The place was always full of locals. The only tourists I ever saw in there was my family. The famous Parc Guell designed by Gaudi is in the neighborhood as well.

The neighborhood was a crux of bohemian people, the upper class, and Catalonian purists. This was exemplified one night when my sister and I went out to a plaza full of kids dressed like punks, next to an upper class bar (you know, where a shot costs $12.00), and a naked man just chilling out in the fountain chatting with friends. I don't have a picture of that, but my sister does.

We arrived yesterday.
Today was a Gaudi day.
Tomorrow is beach, zoo, and the port.

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!

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Yesterday, Euro 2008 concluded with Spain's deserved win over Germany. The match was very technical and tactical and I really enjoyed it. Any soccer player would have loved how precise and skillful the game was, and any sports fan could have appreciated the action.

The opening five matches of the tournament were boring, including some snoozers with Austria, Switzerland, and France vs. Romania. The 6th match with Holland and Italy was when the tournament came alive. Amazingly over 20 goals were scored in the last 15 minutes of matches. No match was over until it was over. Some of the sides like Holland, Russia, Turkey and Spain really opened up their style to play some beautiful soccer, and I almost never use "beautiful" to describe the European game. It was good to see the teams playing anti-football losing.

Another aspect I found interesting was that not one player dominated the tournament. A few had stellar matches (Villa, Podolski, Arshavin, Pepe, Altintop, Sneijder) but overall all the teams had team efforts that dictated their success or failure. Xavi from Spain was voted player of the tournament which exemplifies the team mentality of the cup. He didn't stand out in any match, but he worked all over the field and was generally brilliant.

The tournament downsides were the hosts countries exiting in the first round and UEFA's decision to block all video of the matches on the internet. It was hard to catch up on highlights every day, and as of right now, I can't even find a "greatest goals" video.