La Copa Mundial!! 11/7/2010

Wow!!! Incredible night with Spain winning the World Cup Championship over the Netherlands. Crazy. Again, I went down to the big screen at Corte Ingles, where I ended up with a pretty decent spot to see the game under a tent. There were actually 3-4 screens, though one large one.

As I traveled a bit over the weekend, everywhere you went you could see the Red/yellow Spanish flag hanging everywhere, and here in Salamanca, everyone was out and about to see the game. At Corte Ingles, it was mostly a younger crowd, but people of all ages. The game, as you already know, was a bit long, and everyone was so excited for it. Towards the end though, we were all really nervous as to how it would end up. When they made the goal, though, is when everything went crazy. It was nuts.

The entire city of Salamanca was out in the streets, cheering "Yo soy español, español, español" and a few other songs. It was thousands of people, all in red, with flags, yelling, throwing firecrackers, and just being nuts. Since I'm here in Salamanca, which is a bit of a smaller city, it definitely wasn't as crazy as Madrid or Barcelona, but it was a really nice night of everyone coming together. The game finished around 11, and all throughout the night, everyone of all ages was all out on the streets, from young kids to older abuelas. I ended up going home around 2:00, and I was amongst the first to call it a night. It was a good night.

It's a bit strange to me, though, that as of today here in Salamanca, all of life has returned back to normal again...all of the trash was picked up and the streets were swept, and there was no more singing.