FC BARCELONA vs MANCHESTER CITY

I arrived in Barcelona staunch in my opposition of soccer as a credible sport. Many times in the past I had tried to watch “the most popular sport in the world” with little enjoyment. After shaking my head in dismay when players would dive, when games would end in 0-0 draws and teams would “purchase” silverware whilst other less wealthy clubs had to settle for a life lost in the sea of mediocrity, I was content not being a soccer fan. I was unaware I would leave Spain 11 days later a hopeless convert, forced to swallow my words whilst proudly sporting my “Messi” jersey striped in burgundy and blue.


An exhibition match between FC Barcelona and Manchester City happened to coincide with our stay and at first I was reluctant to buy a ticket. In fact, I think my exact words were “It’s 50 euro for a ticket and I’m not really a soccer fan.” However, our hostel had pre-purchased some tickets and were selling them for 29 euro, everyone was going, so I decided to get on board. As the week progressed, everything from news outlets to peoples’ conversation was saturated with talk about the football (that word for anything other than AFL still doesn’t roll off the tongue easily). FC Barcelona hysteria was mounting, as I assume it does before every match in this football mad city, and I was slowly but surely succumbing to the hype. After Fearny and I purchased team jerseys on a whim and did our homework about the club on the internet, we were becoming very excited….. Perhaps I was even becoming a soccer fan?


Game night arrived and we gathered in a big group to have some beers and head in to the game together. We were wearing our team jerseys, sporting the colours of FC Barcelona, as was almost every man and his dog in some form or another. We arrived at the Camp Nou stadium to find the game was almost sold out. There were almost 100,000 people inside the stadium and the atmosphere was electric, the whole place had a heartbeat you could almost hear. We were lucky enough to be sitting in the front row and we could almost smell the grass 5 metres away. They made a big procession of introducing the players, the ground shrouded in darkness other than a spotlight concentrated on the player being mentioned. Suddenly the floodlights exploded and the field was as bright as day. Within moments, the opening kick-off happened and the game was underway. We were screaming and sighing in exasperation each time a shot would be fired and missed by the narrowest of margins. One may say we had an unusual amount of team pride for 3-days-young supporters.


The game ended with Manchester City winning 1-0. We were disappointed with the match but the experience was priceless. I had a buzz for a few days to follow and now feel I am one of the many fans of this successful football club. We even left the table at dinner a few nights later when there was another FC Barcelona match on TV. We talked about the team with the waiters whilst we watched as if we had been following their progress for years.




Australian Football will always be dearest to my heart when it comes to kicking a ball. However, I now have an appreciation for the universal code of football and definitely consider myself a fan, perhaps even a supporter.

ITALY, IN BRIEF...

Italy exceeded all expectations I had for it. I had high expectations.

I concluded my stint in Italy yesterday after enjoying its many offerings for just shy of 2 weeks.
We visited many corners of this obscurely "boot-shaped" country and were never once disappointed. Starting in the beautiful but somewhat bizarre Venice and finishing in the steep, pastel washed towns of the Cinque Terre, ingesting Rome, the Amalfi coast and Florence along the way, my Italian adventure is one that will be etched in my mind forever. To summarise each and every place I visited in any depth would be an arduous task, thus, I have decided to offer a short blurb on each and include the photo(s) I feel give the most vivid illustration of the personality of the place in question. In sequential order:

Venice


The labyrinth that is Venice is unlike any other place I have ever been. Beautiful but awkward in an endearing way. In a place you can walk the length of in a few hours there are 117 islands, 150 canals and 400 odd bridges to negotiate. A maze of roads where cars are redundant yet boats are indispensable. If you fancy yourself as a good map reader, prepare to let your pride flow down the river. Street signs are sparse and each corner looks somewhat like the last, the Grand Canal the only useful point of reference. You will get lost, try to make the most of it.

Don't expect to stick to budget and learn to bargain unless you want to pay 80 euro for a gondola ride. Stay briefly but indulge while you are there. Dine at a restaurant and sip some local wine. We didn't even stay a night instead preferring to sleep on an overnight train to Rome.

Rome

Surprisingly small (smaller than expected, tiny by no means) for a famous metropolis, Rome is a great place. If you can withstand the heat and enjoy walking then ancient Rome has much to offer. I went to Rome expecting to be greeted with the same pollution and maniacal motorists as in Athens but was pleasantly surprised. We were able to squeeze many sights into a small number of days. The Trevi Fountain and the Coloseum were highlights for me, both beautiful in different ways. A few things I learnt along the way are to not wear a singlet or try on a Sunday if you wish to go inside the Vatican City and if you want to run, forget it altogether. The one jog I managed bypassed hotel driveways, dumpsters and supermarkets. Rome is not to be missed.


The Amalfi Coast
We spent 3 days on the Amalfi Coast in Southern Italy and visited some fanstastic locations.
With Sorrento as our base camp we went on a number of excursions. We passed through the town of Positano, spent a day on the exclusive island of Capri and sampled wine in the quaint but captivating Ravello. We would have purchased a local red wine in Ravello had the cheapest bottle, their "table-wine" if you will, not been a meager 65 euro (worth it but best saved for another time). We bought some grapes on the side of the road, lay on some picturesque beaches and had a great italian meal in Sorrento. The most unique place we saw was the ancient, runied town of Pompeii. A vast (another third is yet to be excavated) and ancient place frozen in time, Pompeii is a must for anyone who is interested in history (or who owns the DVD of Pink Floyd playing here). Despite some of the towns swarming with tourists, the Amalfi Coast was exceptional.


Florence

Florence is a small but enthralling place to visit. We walked the entire length of the city on a few occasions, even when we took our time it took little over and hour.. maybe 2. Saturated with designer boutiques and artisan bakeries you are best served to leave your credit card in your hostel room if you are travelling on a budget. We had our first real splurge here, both of us bought a couple of nice shirts (at a very reasonable price) that we love but that riddled us with guilt. There had to be a minor blowout somewhere along the way.


Cinque Terre
5 towns spanning nothing more than 10km along a cliff face. Our first morning here we thought running from Riomaggiore (the first town) to Monterosso (the last) would be an easy task. By the 4th town we had to call it quits after ascending and descending many stairs in temperatures touching 40 degrees by midday. Views that make your stomach feel uneasy, tunnels covered in graffiti and private beaches 20 minutes off the beaten path were a few of the gems we unearthed whilst on our hike between towns. Cinque Terre is a great place to relax and recooperate between the many party towns europe has to offer. We could have easily spent a day or 2 in each town but unfortunately didn't have the time. We enjoyed a margherita (pizza) coined for a party of 11 between 2 of us, we drank some cheap local wine, jumped off cliffs and swam all day (and at night). Cinque Terre was an apt way to cap off our time in Italy.

Italy is a place I am already pining to return to. There is much more to be said but nothing more I can say now whilst still doing this place the justice it deserves.

We spent a lot of time in transition on buses. Here are a few songs I had on repeat on my iPod to make the journey pass more quickly:
- Des'ree - Crazy Maze
- Bernard Fanning - Further Down The Road
- Bebe - Siempre Me Quedará
- Jose Gonzalez - Cycling Trivialities
- The National - You've Done It Again, Virginia
(whoever reads this should download or at least youtube these songs)

Until Next Time.

LE TOUR

It was finally a reality, time to see it with my own eyes. Unlike past years I was not seated in my lounge-room, dressed in full cycling attire, Camembert cheese and wine by my side, longingly watching the colourful blur of athleticism that is Le Tour de France. This year I was there. I was armed with a car, a camera and a burning desire to get as close to Lance Armstrong as I could without being detained by authorities.


My favourite sporting event, my favourite athlete and a breathtaking backdrop. I knew that this would be one of the absolute highlights of my trip. It was in fact, one of the prime motivators for my trip. The logistics of bringing such a thing to fruition were challenging…

We rented a car in Paris and within minutes I found myself on the notorious roundabout that envelopes the Arc de Triomphe. White knuckles and girlish, shrill screams resulted. We pulled over and mapped out a route to the freeway that circumnavigated the outrageous roundabout. We made it out alive and drove many hours south to ‘Sud France’ to stay in a mountainside chalet. We had a rather pleasant view to wake up to…


The first stage we saw was in Annecy. It was the time-trial stage and the atmosphere was electric. The course consisted of a loop around a beautiful blue lake surrounded and humbled by breathtaking mountains. It was a very surreal place. We stalked the team buses, snuck a peak of Lance warming up and saw almost every rider fly past us in the aerodynamic position. We finished off the day with a meal at ‘Quality Burger’… It was not very high “Quality.”


The next stage took, via a night in Valencia, us to a little town called Bourg De Peage. We parked our car on the side of a road next to an orchard lined with peach trees and waited for the riders to fly past us. First the break-away group then the main peleton.


Mt Ventoux. Half-way between a sporting event and a music festival, this was my favourite stage by a mile! We drove as far up the mountain as we could manage and then set up our tent in a vineyard. For kilometres, the roads were lined with cycling fans waiting for daybreak so that they could begin the trek up the mountain to find a roadside position from which to watch the riders struggle by. We were determined to make it to the top, to see the best when they crawled up the final straight. 6 hours and 20 kilometeres later, we were not disappointed. Armstrong, Contador and Schleck came around the corner side by side. My heart practically jumped out of my throat. It was better than I could have imagined.

The trip back to Paris was an arduous one. We left in the evening when it was still light and drove until the daylight hours, 6 coffees were needed to facilitate such an ambitious journey but we made it in the end. The final stage in Paris was exciting but it was tough to find a good vantage point. Cavendish won in an exciting sprint finish.

I will definitely be making the trip again next year.

"Vive le Tour, forever." - Lance Armstrong (July 25, 2005)

THE AMAZING RACE...

The transition from Ios to Paris was painfully stressful. It was like being involved in an episode of ‘The Amazing Race’ – battling against the clock, covering multiple countries, stomach knotted and throat absent of any moisture.

It began with a rushed, last minute, wake up call from “house-keeping” in Ios. The clock started counting down. We had to pack as fast as we could (the space-efficient rolling method was abandoned) in order to make it down to the port and catch our ferry to Athens. Friends before us had missed theirs but despite the financial sting this would have caused, we had a linking flight to Paris that could not be missed. We had left ourselves what felt like an impossibly small window of time within which to work. No margin for error. No time for delay.

Not only did we plan to dock in Athens 90 minutes before our check-in deadline but we planned to go via a previous hostel to forage for lost property. Essentially, we were risking a flight to Paris (replacement value circa €250) to possibly gain back a Noosa singlet, some blue shorts and some undergarments. It must be noted that at this stage I wasn’t even certain of being on the flight due to itineraries being misplaced and emails from EasyJet vanishing into cyberspace. It was hard to remain unruffled.
There were too many things that could go wrong.

We arrived to find we couldn’t get to our lost property anyway because only “house-keeping” had the key and she was MIA. A wasted stopover… We had a cab called for us and conveyed our time constraints. We then sat and watched the clock, entertaining the unimaginable idea of another night in Athens. A honk from outside and a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Bags were thrown into the cab and we begged him to drive fast (they take this command very literally in Greece). Hitting 180km/h down the freeway and I was ironically starting to fell more composed and relaxed at this stage.

We ran to the desk and confirmed that I was on the flight. We checked in, high-fived and made our way onto the plane. We arrived in Paris as planned. We won this installment of ‘The Amazing Race.’