Although inside I was rooting for Madrid as they have become my second team since they got Ronaldo, I had to wear my Sevilla jersey because I didn't feel like having any Sevilla fans want to kill me. Needless to say, Real Madrid won the game 1-0 on a nice goal from Karim Benzema, however not without controversy. Sevilla seemed to have scored a goal to tie the game but the ref ruled it did not fully go over the line although replay ended up confirming it had (or probably had). Sincere there's no replay in soccer that didn't matter. Madrid ended up winning the second leg a week later in Madrid and advancing to the final.
The third game, however, was just last Sunday. By far the most fun I have had at a game so far. Me and 5 friends got tickets to see FC Barcelona and got to the game about a half hour early. We found seats that were in a good spot as there is nobody to tell you where you actually sit and a lot of the time people just find an open spot. My friend Alison and I had to get up a few times because we were in peoples seats (or so they said) but we eventually ended up in the seats directly behind the rest of our friends. My friend from IU, Leslie, and myself had practiced the Sevilla anthem so we could sing it with the rest of the fans before the game and that's exactly what we did. The game started out pretty badly as Sevilla was getting outplayed in every aspect of the game. It seemed as though I was going to see another one sided affair which was especially disappointing because I hate Barcelona with a passion. Barca scored in the 30th minute or so to go up 1-0 and everyone was pretty pissed. They came close again near halftime when Messi headered a cross off the post but Sevilla escaped only down 1. 3 minutes into the second half Negredo crossed a perfect ball to Jesus Navas who headered in the goal tying it up at 1 and igniting the crowd. Everyone went absolutely insane. It was an amazing atmosphere and nothing like I had ever seen. Although both teams had their chances it ended up a 1-1 final but I was perfectly content with that because it was incredibly exciting and an overall great time. I am hoping I can find a way to get to a game in England when I'm there but we'll see if that's going to be possible.
Now onto Amsterdam. It took another overnight bus ride from Sevilla to get to the Madrid airport and it gets pretty old pretty fast. But this time our flight was at 9am so there was no time to go into the city to hang out. I took this trip with 2 of my friends, Jake (also went to Germany with him) and Steph. We got to the airport with plenty of time and took off, arriving in Amsterdam at 1130am. We eventually figured out what train to get on which ended up being the wrong one but found ourselves at our hostel eventually. We checked into the hotel, put our bags on and went to discover the city. We were a little outside of the center but we found a nice little area not too far away. We walked around there and got some food and then went to the Van Gogh museum. Now for those of you who don't know me well enough to know I don't really like art, well I'm surprised you're reading this if that's the case. Needless to say I paid the 14 euro to see what Van Gogh was all about. To no surprise at all, he was not the most exciting painter, not that any painter in my opinion is very exciting. I will say I enjoyed looking at all of his paintings but I only need a 4-5 second look before I can move onto the next one. My friends however, needed about a minute on every one. I took this opportunity to nap, and they would wake me up every time we were going to a different room in the museum. When we were done we went to hang out in the main area where I fell asleep for around 30 minutes while they looked at some other section of the museum with different artists. I had enough art for a lifetime after that trip. And we happened to see some people playing a very large game of chess...
We left the museum and headed back to the hostel. We wanted to save money and had heard food in the Netherlands is nothing to write home about so we decided to go to the grocery store to buy food and make it at the hostel. They told us they had a full kitchen so we decided to buy a couple frozen pizzas and make them in the hostel. That was our first mistake, assuming they had an oven. They did not and we were forced to make our pizzas in the microwave. Although they turned out to be good, they obviously would have been better in an oven. We split a 12 pack of Heineken (sorry mom but 4 beers is really not that much) and hopped on a tram to the center of Amsterdam. Side note: apparently you are supposed to pay for a tram card but we didn't know how nor wanted to spend the money so we just hopped on and off when it got busy to avoid ever having to pay for the tram. Back to the night, we decided to head to the red light district as it is a must for a trip to Amsterdam. We walked up and down it a few times laughing at every guy that left one of the prostitutes rooms. We learned a lot about them though, that it costs 50 euros to go into a room with one and they have to pay 100 euros just to use the window. They also get regular testing haha. Anyway we went into a few bars and in honor of my dad, I had a Grolsch at one of them. We went to a few and then headed home after a pretty fun night out. Next morning was pretty interesting since I took it upon myself to decide I was going to sleep in Jake and Stephs hostel room instead of my own since the door didn't lock and there was a girl in my bed (but not the one above mine). They had beds open in their room and it actually locked so I figured it was a better choice. Apparently not as the next morning the hostel owner freaked out at me at first telling me he could kick me out (which I didn't really care about) until I made some stuff like I felt unsafe in the other room and he ended up feeling bad. Once everything was sorted out we went into the city and went to the Anne Frank House. Definitely a good experience and I'm glad I went although it was kinda weird being in the place they were hiding for so long.
After that we walked through the whole city saw a lot of stuff, hung out by some canals and just relaxed. We watched some kids skateboard and later on break one of the skateboards in half for fun. After that we went back to the hostel and made pasta for dinner. We met some cool people there, the girls who were studying abroad in Paris that were staying in the same room and some Australian guys. That night was a big night for Jake who goes to Wisconsin so we went to a bar and watched the Badgers vs K State. I had to root for KState since I want to win $ however it didn't work out that way ha. Anyway we had a great time watching the game and got back to the hostel around 430am. I got my stuff together and caught a bus around 515am for my 8am flight back to madrid. The other 2 stayed in Amsterdam for an extra day so I was on my own. I made it back safely although I fell asleep everywhere I was throughout my trip back.
I was glad to get back to Sevilla and a consistent environment that I knew. It was an overall really fun weekend and great experience. I've still got trips to Morocco, Italy, and England left to take and I can't wait for those. I have less than 2 months left here but a lot to do. I'm sure I'll have an update at some point on this thing and it probably wasn't as fun to read as last time but you all get the gist of my soccer experiences and trip to Amsterdam. Can't wait for Steph, mom, and John to all get here in just 10 days and get to see what I've been living in the last couple months and a nice little day trip to Granada. Also here's to hoping that maybe I can win my pool in Sevilla and maybe even the family pool. Adios for now everyone.
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