Hola,
So this weekend I hung out in Bilbao for the first time in a LONNNNNG time. Thursday we finished school and immediately went to the stadium to buy tickets for the Real Madrid vs. Athletic soccer match. We stood in line for two hours to get our tickets. After I went home, took a siesta and went out for the night.
Friday I spent the whole day on the beach. When I say the whole day I mean I woke up and went to the beach and went home around the time the sun was going down. It was a very relaxing experience, but the water was extremely cold. I am so happy that I live 5 minutes walking from the beach. After I went to the beach I came home to eat, took a nap, and then went to walk on the beach for the night. I made it an early night because I knew that Saturday had so much to offer.
Saturday I woke up and went for a run. Once again, along the beach. After the run I ate. A few hours went by and it was time to go to the Athletic game. My friend Alec was bringing his house dad so I stopped by to pick them up. Alec's house dad was probably the funniest spaniard I have ever met. He was so excited for this game and was going insane. We got on the train at about 7:30 and headed down towards the stadium. When we got there we walked around the stadium and found where the players enter. We waited the for a half hour for all the players to enter. It was insane how the crowd was. There was probably 200 people screaming at the busses as they entered into the stadium. No one cared about rules. For security though, they had about 15 men in riot gear. When I say riot gear they had on everything and were ready to go. They had on their helmets and masks to cover their face. It was quite intimidating to look at these guys and made me think twice about any attempts I wanted to make to get close to the players (just kidding the thought never crossed my mind). After we saw all the players we walked around the stadium a little bit more before entering. There were so many people out and about it was insane. It was even hard to walk. When the gates opened we entered and Jose (Alec's house dad) explained to us it is sort of a free for all for seats, so we sat in some seats that were close to ours but weren't exactly ours. We never had a problem. Our seats were exactly what we wanted for waiting in line 2 days early and for 2 hours. We were in the 4th row on the north side of the field. As the stadium started to fill up it just kept getting louder and louder. These people really have a passion for their soccer. Everyone was singing chants and yelling at the players. The cool thing about Bilbao soccer is that everyone on the team is from Pais Vasco. When you put us up against a team like Real Madrid where only 2 people are even from Spain and they are signing out huge checks to their players, you can understand why I knew we had no chance of winning. We went through the first half with the score being 2-2 and I thought we might actually put up a fight. In the second half the game was finalized at 5-2, but that didn't stop the loyal Bilbao fans from chanting. They continued to haze Real Madrid all the way through the 90th minute. I have respect for their admiration of their team. People were throwing half eaten sandwiches, garbage, whatever they could find at the Real Madrid players and the Refs. I have never seen a ref taunted so bad before I saw a soccer match. In this stadium they do not sell liquor due to the fact that liquor is an inhibitor to more drunken soccer hooligan problems. They do allow you to smoke cigarrettes in your seat though. I went to the game wearing an Athletic flag which got me a lot of comments I did not understand and numerous high fives. Since soccer is pretty much the only sport played in Spain fans do have quite the passion for it. It is a memory I will never forget! Here are some pictures from the game.......