June 20-22: Vera and the Football Match

The group
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On June 20th I went with a group of students not from my group to Vera, a beach in Almeria. I shared room with two other girls, one of which is Erin, my classmate. The other girl is Megan, who has been studying Spanish for 10 years and is going to be a Spanish teacher. Vera, from what I saw, is a very quiet town with just dry grass and sand everywhere. We got to the bus station at Vera around 4pm but didn’t get to our hotel an hour later because the taxi took forever to come to us. After checking in we went to a nearby supermercado and bought some food and A LOT of alcohol. Megan wanted to make drinks with tequila and soft drinks. We went to the pool in our hotel after that. The pool was really cool with beautiful setting around it. Then we came back to our room and made ourselves some pretty good sandwiches with ham. We then went to the other room where many people in their group gathered and stayed there till 12. The next day we went to the beach. Because the beach is close to the mountains, the water is full of tiny sharp rocks. We played volleyball for a bit and then everyone was just laying on the beach for good sunburn. We came back to the hotel later that afternoon, watched four movies in a row, and went to bed. The girls seemed to enjoy their time a lot. They talked about how good a trip it was on our way to the bus station the day after, but to me there was one of the most boring trips ever. There was nothing much to do and the beach was not that pleasant to jump in.

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I came back to Granada at 9 pm and went to a bar to catch the second half of the match between Spain and Italy (My hostess doesn’t care so much for football). I was a little more inclined toward Italy because Italy is the current world champion and because I saw how upset my Italian friend was the last time Italy lost to Holland. Nevertheless, Spain did a stupendous job. There were many attacks on Italy’s side and Spain completely deserved their advance into the semi-final. As soon as the game ended, the young people were out in the street chanting “Casillas maravilla.” They headed toward a fountain, jumped in the water, and splashing it with their hands and shirts. They climbed up to the top of the fountain and yelled “España.” People driving honked their horns to a tune and so did some people with their own horns. The streets were filled with red and yellow from the Spanish flags and t-shirts. People lined up on two side of a street lane and held the Spanish flag so that it floated over every car that was going through that lane. Because I’m a giri, or a foreigner, they made me yell “España” with them and dance with them in a chant. The same rituals were repeated on Thursday when España won over Rusia. It’s so cool that after losing for so long, they are getting this far to the final. I’m also happy that they are winning when I am in Spain and I get to experience their spirit.