A Perfectly Spanish Weekend

A Warning: This is quite a long entry, perhaps to compensate for my horrible post about Granada.

This weekend was action-packed, and was Spanish in every way: wine by the river, new Spanish friends, ironic gifts, getting lost, general chaos, fútbol, pastries in the plaza, “Se llama copla” and, of course, lots of smoke.

On Friday I ventured with a friend to the Estadio Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan, the home of the Sevilla Fútbol Club, to buy eight tickets to Saturday’s game. Somehow, we made it to the stadium taking a number of different buses, magically ending up where we needed to be. We nervously approached the ticket counter and got our tickets, and headed on our way home, taking a series of different buses. We were in fact, feeling pretty proud of ourselves for making it to the stadium, buying our tickets, and making it home without incident.

After arriving home and having dinner with my Señora, her cousin, and the cousin’s 2 ½ year old son (who recited the colors to me in English), I headed out to meet my friends from Granada that were visiting for the weekend, and we sat by the river and shared Señora stories, travel plans, and other random adventures.

Saturday I woke up at 7:30, ready to head out to a National Park in the region of Huelva to plant trees with my Ecology Interest Group. The four of us Americans met up with our Interest Group Leader and over 60 other Spaniards, we were certainly the minorities. My leader will also be a professor for one of my classes, so I better like him. Upon arriving at the site, we were given mini-backpacks complete with our lunches, a can of hairspray, a can of hair mousse, and hair gel. The four of us laughed at this extremely random gift, here we were on an environmental project, being given aerosol sprays. When we asked why we were given these ironic gifts, we were told that the hair product company was the sponsor. This demonstrates that a lot of times in Spain things are one step forward and two steps back (also witnessed by the hoards of Spaniards smoking in a National Park, their cigarettes littering the countryside).

Before we could even begin planting, we were taken on a little tour of a very small section of the area we would be working on, where we were primarily shown invasive species. At one point the head of the tour yelled, “This is our enemy, attack!” (in Spanish of course) and started pulling of branches. To my surprise, the group actually charged the bushes, breaking branches, stumps, and felling trees. This was of course, doing more harm than good as they were leaving the roots intact, but I think it was supposed to be more symbolic, plus, it gave us Americans something to laugh about (this was supposed to be reforestation, not deforestation).

Once planting began we were paired up with other Spaniards (I was with my Professor) and we worked on planting trees throughout the area. It was pretty impressive to look around and see so many people busily working, although at the end there were more people smoking than working. After our hard work, we headed out to the Pine Forest, a picnic area (complete with bar) that is very similar to an American park, to eat our lunches. We ate with one of our new Spanish friends, a guy that is going to start his first job on Monday working for the National Park we were at. We once again shared laughs about the hair products (he thought it was just as ridiculous as we did), and enjoyed a nice day in the sun.

After a long day of hard work and new friends, I headed home with another new Spanish friend to prepare for what was sure to be a fantastic evening of fútbol, stopping along the way at a plaza to get a pastry and people watch.

My Señora was just excited as I was that I was going to the game, and had even lent me her son’s Sevilla scarf to wear to the game. My group met up and eagerly started our journey to the stadium. Remember however, how my friend and I were feeling proud for conquering the Spanish transportation system? Well, I guess pride got the best of us. After getting lost in Sevilla (par for the course by now, we spend ¾ of our time here lost) and taking numerous buses, we finally found our way to the stadium where the celebration was already in full swing.

After eating dinner on the stairs outside the stadium, we entered, thinking we had conquered our largest obstacle, we were wrong. In typical Spanish style, nothing is labeled, so we wandered into section after section, not finding our seats. We asked numerous concession stand workers, but they claimed they didn’t know (once again, good ‘ole Spanish service). Finally I found a security person and asked him, at which time we were told we could sit anywhere within the gate we had walked in and that the numbers on our tickets were worthless (this would have been good to know before). We found our way to someone else’s seats while watching someone light a red smoke bomb and someone else dance in the smoke and play a drum. The game was quite exciting, but not as crazy as I thought it would be (perhaps I am used to it from Badger games?). We were tied up at 1-1 until literally the last minute of regulation play, when one of the Sevilla players was taken down in the box. This of course, meant a penalty kick, and the entire stadium collectively held their breath. He shot, and he scored. The crowd went wild; the announcer did not. Apparently (for some unknown reason as there is no instant replay) the goal didn’t count and he had to shoot again. Now that is pressure. He shot again, and GOAL! The whole crowd went nuts, people were cheering, hugging, dancing, singing, smoking, playing drums; it was chaos. It was quite the ending to the game, and as we left the stadium and walked home, not wanting to pay for taxis as they charge by time and not distance, “The Song of Sevilla” accompanied us.

An hour and twenty minutes and many Sevilla cheers from passersby later, I arrived home to find my Señora and her friend watching my Señora’s favorite show “Se llama copla”. Think American Idol on its worst night with a drunken cameraman, Flamenco singing instead of pop music, the worst documentary show about a no-name person, and a high school film project, and you have the show. I was invited to join them, and I spent the wee hours of the morning between two Spanish women watching to see which singer would be dramatically expelled from the show. You can’t get much more Spanish than that.