Villa, Villa, Villa! Villa Maravilla!

Last night we went to Phoenix to watch Spain vs Germany in the world cup semi finals! As you should all know by now, Spain played awesome and won 1-0. :) Now Spain, for the first time ever, is going to the finals vs the Netherlands and I will get to witness it on Sunday!!! The game was pretty much awesome since Spain dominated Germany the whole time and everyone in the bar, let alone, the entire country, was going wild. Everyone in the bar was screaming.. "Yo soy español, español, español!" (I am Spanish, Spanish, Spanish), "Villa, Villa, Villa! Villa Maravilla!" (for one of their star players-David Villa) and "A por ellos!; Viva España!" and so much more... The atmosphere in the bar was incredible, especially when Puyol scored the only goal of the game.

Everyone was screaming, chanting, waving flags, jumping up on chairs, blowing horns, craziness... When the game was over we went outside where people were all rioting in the streets to celebrate and there were drunk old guys throwing ice cubes at people?? People were honking their horns and running around draped in Spanish flags and singing the Spanish anthems. Then we headed over to Plaza Nueva, where there were tons of people swimming and splashing in the fountain in the square and climbing up onto the top of the tall monument in the center to celebrate and cheer for Spain!

us in front of the fountain

P.S. The world cup has its own "groundhog day" in a sense, every game day. Except.. the groundhog is replaced by Paul, the pulpo (octopus), who predicts the winner of each game. So far, he's been right about the past four games.. and let's just hope he picks Spain to win the Copa Mundial! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcxKgQtBVAM

Next, we headed to a bar to meet our Texas friends that we've been hanging out with here lately. There, we met some Spaniards that took us to our first legit botellon! - which is basically a huge group of people drinking and partying in the streets. It was absolutely insane because there were sooo many people and there were cars just whipping in and out between them as if there was no one. These Spanish people are crazy drivers. They have these tiny little cars and they just think they can go wherever they want with them.

viva España!

I will definitely miss the fiestas in Spain and all the crazy excitement that goes with it... and I can't wait for the finals on Sunday, which could possibly be the icing on the cake to this wonderful experience I've had so far. :)