The guy sitting next to me smells like crackers.

That's what Liliana leaned over and whispered to me a little ways into the game. Yes, the GAME!

I went to the SEVILLA V BARCELONA futbol (soccer) game yesterday and it was PHENOMENAL! The Sevilla stadium is about a 10 min walk from home. A lot of kids from my neighborhood went. I sat with three of my friends: Liliana, Audrey, and Paige. Liliana knows a decent bit about soccer (she's crazy about some of the players on the Barcelona team and was not-so-secretly routing for them instead of Sevilla) and was very helpful in explaining things to me throughout the game. Overall, I know very little about soccer except for what I have picked up from friends. Still, though, I appreciated going and had a great time. I was not bored AT ALL, which was a new feeling for me at a sporting event. It just goes to show that in my mind soccer definitely, definitely trumps football. It's not even a contest.

Liliana and me waiting for the game to start, making our excited faces.

Barcelona warming up!!

It was actually really interesting to go to a sporting event that wasn't in English. Not because of the announcements or anything like that (they actually don't announce anything except for substitutions), but because of the way fans acted. Even basic noises of suspense were completely different. It was "uy" instead of "oo," "oof" instead of "ugh." Our noises were definitely out of place. Plus, obviously they were screaming things out in Spanish rather than English... the two guys behind us were especially verbose (and I think slightly drunk) and kept screaming things like "hijo de puta" (son of a bitch), "maricon" (queer), and other fantastically inappropriate phrases. Audrey and I thought it was hilarious. But I mean, of course they were saying that--it's not like they were going to shout things in any other language. It wouldn't have been funny at all if it were in English, but somehow these Spaniards behind us screaming profanities through the whole game made the experience just that much more authentic. Even the non-profanities were fun to hear for some reason... like once just before Sevilla tried to score on Barcelona, the guy behind us screamed "está buena!" (it's good!) right before Sevilla missed. I don't know, it all sounds so obvious, but it was immensely enjoyable.

We bought the scarves, but the hats were free! That's me, Audrey, and Paige.

Early into the game this smoke bomb went off in the area for Sevilla club members... they were singing songs the whole time, clapping, banging, and waving their flags. It was great. One of their songs was sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, which was, well, hilarious.

Liliana and me during halftime.

Overall, in case I haven't stressed this enough, the game was totally fantastic even though Sevilla lost horribly. It was really interesting and fun to experience the atmosphere of Spanish soccer and especially fun to see a team as good as Barcelona (ranked number 1 in Spain) and some of their famous players. It definitely felt epic (ok... the first half, anyway) to see Barcelona playing the local underdog team. My experience last night was absolutely worth the obscene amount of money that I shelled out to go!