Davis Cup

Last Thursday it was raining all day which was pretty disappointing. It was disappointing because Charbeck and I were planning on playing tennis on Friday. Friday morning, however, the sun was out and so tennis was in the forecast. About 130pm I tried calling the public sports facility near my house to reserve a court, but I got no answer like 5 times. I was frustrated but I told Char to come up my way regardless because we could just walk over there if they didn't pick up. Finally at 2pm (and on my sixth attempt) a guy picks up and I ask for a court reservation. Here is our conversation:

Me: "Hi, um, I would like to reserve a court for this afternoon please"
Other guy: "Nope, we don't have any today"
Me: "Really? No courts today?"
Other guy: "Nope, not until 2pm"
Me (confused): "Um, well its 2:05 right now?"
Other guy: "Ok, then just come over and you can get a court"

For me that was heartbreak and euphoria in 30 seconds, but for Spain that was just a normal conversation. Just a guy doing his job, and hating it the whole time.

So when Char shows up at about 2:20 we jog over to the facility to warm up, excited that we have a reservation. Or do we? I never left a name or anything so this should be fun. I go up to the window and begin telling the guy (who presumably I had talked to on the phone) that I was the one who called. He interrupts me to tell us that since we were delayed in getting there he gave the court to two other people. Heartbreak. So he lets the tragedy sink in and then says but you can go over to them and ask to play doubles, and I wont charge you. Euphoria. This must be the guy with whom I spoke on the phone, because he has mastered the art of playing with people's emotions.

So we find the court which he told us to go to (court 6) and find two Spanish kids our age playing. We also find out that the court is astroturf, but the kids are into playing doubles with us.

the court was not quite this bad, but pretty similar

We warm up, and make yet another discovery (besides the astroturf court being the worst surface ever): that the tennis balls are solid rubber, no air in the middle. So, we are not exactly playing tennis, but whatever it is it will be fun.

After the warm ups we get going, and I courteously tell them that they can serve first being that its their home court. By the way Charlie and I had them repeat their names twice and neither one of us had the slightest clue what their names are. So just for fun we will call them Juan-Manzi and Ecildo. That's actually the closest I can come to getting their names.

In any event, Juan-Manzi serves (saque en espanol) first and turns out to be a pretty wicked server. Add the fact that the ball bounces in any direction it wants, and returning becomes tough. I don't think we got a ball back that game. Then Char serves and we lose that game quickly. During the end of that game I came to the realization that this was more than just a casual tennis match. This was USA vs. Spain, this was a poor-man's Davis Cup. I even said it out loud to our opponents. It was then that we kicked in gear.

Down 2-0, Ecildo was serving and it turned out that he sucked, so we just began hitting it to him all the time. We win that game, we win my saque (pronounced saw-kay), and then we win Juan-Manzi's saque too! Things were looking really good for team America, up 3-2 with all the momentum in the world. I think I made some off the cuff remark to Char about not losing another point or something, but I was brimming with confidence. Then we lose Char's serve and we allow Ecildo to win his too! Darn! Were down 4-3 all of a sudden and were letting our country down.

I win my serve in a marathon game in which they had probably 10 break points, but Ecildo could not get my serve over the net. I almost was feeling badly, but I was not going to have mercy in such a big match. Then we win a big game on Juan-Manzi's serve and it looks like we have taken command again. So Char is serving for the match. We lose the first point and then on the second point Char hits me in the head with his first serve and proceeds to double-fault while giggling like crazy. We lose his service game badly, and then Ecildo holds serve again! I don't know how we are letting him win, he is really bad.

So the situation is 6-5 them, my serve. The clouds are rolling in and the match is reaching its climax. I can see the tiebreaker awaiting us. So I hit a couple of good serves, play a couple of bad points and so were now sitting at 30 all, pressure time. I step up to the line, bounce the ball a couple of times, wipe the sweat off my brow, and ready myself. Just then, two ladies walk on to our court and tell us that they have it reserved. Juan-Manzi says ok, walks to the bench and gets his stuff. I was stunned for like ten seconds, then I was pissed. We had two points to win to level the match and Juan-Manzi did not even protest. He just obediently walked off. The ladies were going to stretch and chat for 15 minutes anyways! So we literally got kicked off and Juan-Manzi graciously called it a "tie". Spaniards would settle for that crap. Char and I were in it to win it. It had to be one of the stranger Davis Cup matches of all time.

Granada

So on Wednesday night I boarded a bus to Granada at about 8pm with four amigos (In picture from bottom: Dan Couch, Maggie Higgins, Tyler Karlen, Matt Hennessy). The bus ride had two highlights. The first was the movie we watched. The Edge with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin. We spent the entire movie trying to predict every next move, and for the most part we were always wrong. Mix that movie with a group of fun-loving Spanish girls who decided it was an awesome idea to get silly drunk on a bus with no bathroom. For the last hour we heard a lot of the word "mear" (which to you unilingual crowd means "pee" in English). They also provided us with the pure entertainment of reading the English subtitles out loud. Good times.

So we get to the hostel after some taxi shenanigans and check in with Kevin, the French guy behind the desk. I am wondering whether Kevin's real name was not Kevin, kind of like when telemarketers from Bangalore call and say their names are Charles and Michael. Just wondering. So Kevin shows four of us to one room and then takes Matt to the room where he will be staying. Matt comes back and tells us that Kevin took him through some hall-way and to the "special-room". First of all I died laughing that Matt was taken to a "special-room" by a Frenchmen. (Not too worried about lots of French people reading this and getting mad). Then he tells me that upon entering there was a couple taking the liberty of getting relatively intimate on the adjacent bed. Who does that in a hostel? Anyways, I forgot to mention that the hostel is called the "Funky Backpacker". There is just not enough time to explain how fitting this name is so I will leave that to the imagination for now.

Thursday was Alhambra day. The whole day we went to the Alhambra and toured the Moorish quarter of town. Before our visit in the morning I stumbled upon a local newspaper which informed that the Alhambra is currently up for election as one of "The new 7 wonders of the world". It is one of only 21 world-wide sites, and the only one in Spain. That bit of news got me excited, but as I ran through the current 7 wonders that I knew of for sure I determined that the Alhambra would probably have to change my life to earn my vote. (Yes, voting is happening online for the new 7 wonders at the clever URL of www.news7wonders.com and it is a really fun site). I feel like the internet itself should be a wonder.

Sadly the Alhambra did not earn my vote. It was amazing and probably Spain's coolest site, but it isn't "wonder" worthy. Had they been giving out refreshments or t-shirts to promote the campaign I may have changed my mind.

So at night we meet up with Guillermo, a friend of Matt's, who is going to take us around Granada for the night. We go to a small alimentacion where the group is buying a couple of bottles of wine for an adventure on which we are about to embark. While in there I spotted something that I couldn't pass up. It was a bottle with a bandana tied around the neck. The only bandana colors to choose from where purple and orange...I got orange. It was three euros and I was gloating over my purchase. It turned out that the wine in the bottle was not wine at all. Whatever liquid was inside that bottle was not something that could sell itself (hence the bandana), but that was a lesson I learned after sip #1. I wore the bandana all night to justify the impulse decision that I had made in buying it.

About 230am Guillermo takes us to a club which is supposed to be tucked into a cave up in the mountains. I was not overly excited but I figured the spectacle was going to be worth it. We found the place and sure enough it was a cave, an empty cave. Upstairs there was a normal looking club/bar where the employees outnumbered the clubbers. Beginning to fall asleep, at 330am I went home to enjoy the comforts of the funky backpacker. Turns out that hostel is an acoustic masterpiece, and at all hours of the day too. It also turns out that good acoustics are just about the last thing you can appreciate while trying to sleep. But that is just one of the charming aspects of the "Funky Backpacker".

Sevilla

We arrived Friday night at 7pm to Sevilla and had the same taxi driver issue. We get in the cab, tell him the street and the hostel name and he shakes his head, says I don't know that street. He then gets out, opens the door and orders us out. I was really pissed because these taxi drivers don't even know their own cities. So I call the hostel and tell ask them for something that the taxi can drop us by close to the hostel. So as the cab guy is taking our bags out of the trunk I tell him where to drop us and he says he knows where that is and lets us back in. Then he lectures me for five minutes on how I (along with every other American) closed my door too hard. All European cars are small and weak, and I guess I wasn't gentle enough. Other than the first 5 minutes of the cab ride he was really nice and I enjoyed what he had to say.

After we checked in and ate a 2 hour meal, we walked around the enormous cathedral and headed down to the river. Sevilla is the Spanish version of Paris.

The next morning we got up pretty early and began exploring the city. We walked through the Cathedral, the Royal Palace, and the Plaza de Espana. It was the nicest weather that I have yet encountered in Spain and one of the most fun days. We booked a flamenco show for the night time at a place called Los Gallos. All Spaniards complain that these places aren't "authentic" enough, and that it is watered down for dumb tourists. I couldn't tell the difference, I just loved the experience. The crowd was definitely pretty stiff and touristy, but Matt and I spiced things way up by initiating the loud Ole chants after impressive sections. You could tell the performers loved us for that. By the end of the show we had most of the place getting rowdy and shouting ole ole.

After the show we wandered aimlessly for 90 minutes before finding a dinner place that looked good and cheap. As it were, the table next to us was the Belgian Olympic team for 2008. They were celebrating having just qualified for the team that day, and drinks were in no shortage. The waitress for our table was waiting on them as well, and she was hating life. Europeans are just such boisterous people, even before drinking. At one point two Spanish girls came out of their apartment to simply take out the trash, and the next thing they know their getting cheered and jeered by a bunch of sleazy foreigners. I felt bad for Spain in general at that point because that is much of what Spain has become.

Dinner was over and half of our group went off to explore Sevillian nightlife and hit the town. We did not get far, and we certainly did not explore any nightlife. After about an hour we were nodding off so we went back to the hostel to get our beauty sleep.

The next day we cruised the city for a few more hours before catching a bus home. It was altogether one of the most fun weekends yet. The weather was perfect, my companeros were awesome, and the cities were very memorable. I will be very ready to go back down to Andalucia in December.

Real Madrid

It had all the makings of being one of the most memorable nights of my stay here in Spain: my first Real Madrid game. Barcelona had just tied the night before and with a win Real would be tied for first place in La Liga (albeit very early in the year). Seven o'clock start time for the game so I met Jacobo Silva (my ticket connection) at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu at 6:45, enough time to find our seats and talk about the game before. When i got there i found Jaco right away and we got to our seats really quickly. Excellent seats, thirteen rows up, just about on mid-field. The stadium is awesome, overwhelming even. It holds 80,000 and it was fully sold out last week even though the Madrilistas were playing lowly Celta Vigo. The pregame chatter had been interesting because the media was reporting that Ronaldo and David Beckham were tired of not playing enough minutes and they thought the coach didnt like them. Ronaldo got to start the game which got everyone pumped, even though he is still obviously fat and lazy. Real gets some early chances and is playing a little impatiently through the first 25 minutes. There is a sense in the crowd though that Real will turn it on when it counts and get at least one goal before half-time. Then tragedy strikes, when midfielder Emerson tries a fancy move on the defensive end and gets striped of the ball and the sequence leads to a goal. The place was dead. Shocked, but not depressed. This team had won in the Bernabeu last year and it wasnt going to happen again was the attitude. So Emerson is getting horrendously booed every time he looks at the ball (which i thought was fine because the goal was all his fault) and Real is still playing impatient and not getting anything going. Then they lock in right before half and after a sequence of attacks and corner kicks, what do you know but Emerson heads one home and the place goes wild. Next time he touches the ball he practically gets a standing ovation (which i thought was ridiculous because he did nothing to set the play up, only got his head on it in a wide open lane). Halftime 1-1, no sweat, second half will be all Madrid. Wrong, Real comes out and the game flows much like the first half, attacks from both sides. Ronaldo goes out, Van Nistelrooy, Beckham and Reyes come in. This is our star lineup (but not the coaches favorite). We get some nice build-ups then nothing comes of it. Its getting late in the game and literally the exact instant when Reyes steals the ball from a Vigo player and decides to make a decisive counter attack he gets picked and the guy sets up a perfect ball to his teammate in the box who buries it for the game winner. 81st minute 2-1 Celta Vigo, the people are so pissed. Not even shocked, just pissed. Everytime a Real Madrid player touches the ball they are booing and hissing. It was super disappointing. Even more disappointing is that i probably wont get invited back for a game after being a bad luck charm tonight. It was an unbelievable experience but Real made two big mistakes and got burned. The last thing i want is to get caught up being a fan of another heartbreaking team, but i think i am already hooked.

My New Blog

The opening of this blog comes at the request of many to document some of the stuff that happens here in Spain every week. No promises with anything, except I do promise that this wont be a daily thing. Every once in a while I will describe an event that happened that day, or maybe even recall an experience from earlier in the trip. Im sure next to no one will read this anyways. However I will be blogging my experience at the Real Madrid game (which I am going to tonight) when I return home. If Real does not win it wont be pretty. Ciao.