Sunday, July 6, 2008

España!

One of the big features of our travels, both in Morocco and Spain, has been the prominence of football (aka soccer). Everywhere we go, we see people wearing jerseys of popular players, kicking the ball around, and watching games.

We’ve been lucky to be here during the European championships, or Euro 2008, that were going on for much of June. It’s a big international championship, featuring national teams from all over Europe. And given the Europeans’ strength in football, the tournament is almost as competitive as the World Cup.

We got to watch a bunch of the games, probably more than we could have seen in the US, which was awesome for one devoted and one budding fan. Finding places to see games has occasionally been difficult. In Morocco, the cafes are essentially all-male affairs, and in many cases it’s been too intimidating for us to brave them. The place where we watched the final (Spain vs. Germany) had about a 50-to-1 male-female ratio. For much of the time, Amber was the only woman in the packed place! In Agadir, there was a nice little sitting room in our hotel where we could watch with the management and a few other guests.

Having been in Spain for the last two months, we had a slight leaning towards them at the beginning. Watching their earlier games turned us into fans. They played a beautiful, smooth, crisp passing game, with some really stellar defense. And, well, they won! Which makes us sad we’re not there now for the celebrations. But still pretty excited. And then sad again, cause there’s no more football to watch… boo.

Spanish fans celebrating the victory

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