In all it has worked well-even when Nicole’s nephew Luca has taken-over the livingroom whilst sleeping the large terrace has made this not a problem. I have been able to work during the day fairly normally and they have even taken care of most of the cooking so it has in some ways been better than normal.

It took a bit of work to persuade them to hire bikes as it cost €40 each for the week and they were not sure they would use them. In the end it turned out that we went out on the bikes everyday and most of the days more than once. I had hoped that the bikes would also help them feel independent-and that seemed to be the case.

All in all a good week but it has made us grateful we have such a large flat(and terrace). It has also made us realise a few things we would change when looking for a new flat.

We went to our usual football bar last night to watch the match, it is right by the football stadium and a popular bar for Spaniards, we watched the German semi-final on Wednesday day there also. On Wednesday we had to get there early to get seat – getting there at 8pm for the 8:45 kickoff. Last night we thought it would be more crowded and got there for 7:45 – but it was already full.

The indoor part of the bar is so small that you can only get people queuing for the bar and toliets to fit inside, but outdoors there are hundreds of chairs, from the main bar and two additional bars on either side.

We had to watch the match from a side bar which was a shame, but co-incidently this was the same bar we had watched Russia and Spain play their first match of the tournament. Previously there had been a drunk guy sat in front of us who was quite unpleasant but bearable, this time we got the Spanish National Front as company.

We could not get seats and could only stand leaning on some railings, we were squeezed in behind a table of guys smoking unlawful substances, but the wind was brisk and the fumes were not a problem. Around us though were many skinheaded guys carrying (what I found out later was) a Neo-fascist flag. These guys kept saluting each other with one arm, which came to be quite noticeable.

I had already said to Nicole that if things started going Russia’s way that I didn’t want to be in the area at the end of the match – as it was there was no problems from that. Some of the goals celebrations were great and loud – more like being in a stadium than a bar! I have embedded the three goal celebrations below – you will notice they ran out of fireworks for the third! :-D

We moved to the back of the crowd as the 90th minute went – not sure what to expect as a celebration of the 3-0 victory. It was interesting to note how many people were keen to get away from the area quickly (out of the one and half thousand or so most left quickly).

First Goal:

Second Goal:

Third Goal:

The best bit is when Gaylord fetches his bone :-D

I used to have a great log of my travels here from 2003-2004 with pictures etc but this can now only eb found on the wayback machine cache from Jan 2004.

The wayback archive is great but the images don’t always display and also it can’t be edited – I’d like to pull down all of the content and repost it but this is taking ages – slowly I will get it rebuilt though.

There are some new pages on The Big Trip 2003- 2004, but these also take time to build up.