World Cup Revelry

World Cup revelry in San Sebastian, Spain from Erin Shachory on Vimeo.

World Cup - Ole!

You may not be able to see the true insanity of the World Cup celebration in San Sebastian with this pix, so I'll upload a video later. Suffice to say that Raf and I have never seen anything like it. If we had been downtown in LA for the Lakers' win over Boston, let's say, the cars would have been turned over and fires started and fights breaking out and police everywhere...

Not so in sweet little San Sebastian. Dancing, singing, pounding on cars as they passed (which they only did because they were using their cars and horns to celebrate, not because they actually needed to get anywhere!), play bull-fighting the cars, jumping, shouting, lighting fireworks, drumming, kissing, stopping public buses, jumping on car hoods, running into the plaza fountain, screaming and reveling.

Our kids rolled with it, through the 2-hour World Cup final game on TV and the passionate partying afterward. At first, the loud explosions from the fireworks scared them (some were zinging past our window and up at nearby buildings, bursting into colorful sparks), but they soon became as mesmerized as Raf and me. We couldn't stay off the balconies, wanted to keep watching what would come next. I had just bought a red and yellow beach towel with a black bull on it, so we waved it from our balcony and got excited thumbs-ups from the people below. Eventually, my tired family retreated inside, closed the windows and grew so accustomed to the sounds of "Ole- ole-ole... Ole-ole!" that we were all able to fall asleep, even as the fireworks, shouting and singing grew louder.

It must have all stopped around 4 am. I'm guessing this because the silence was what woke me up!

World Cup Fever

Spain vs. Netherlands tonight. Our apartment overlooks an Irish pub called Molly Malone, and futbol (add the accent over the "u" por favor) fans have been filing in for a few hours already. This guy, draped in a Spanish flag, is heading out to incite fans to honk as they drive by.

Interestingly, we've been noticing so much Basque pride -- from signs and menus, which are always written in Euskara, the Basque language, first and Spanish second, rarely French or English, to a huge Basque national parade and rally last night that passed our apartment -- that we weren't sure if people would freely support Spain as it vies for the World Cup title.

Obviously, they do. I wonder if they'll loot and be crazy like in LA when the Lakers win or if the European sophistication that we've seen so far will override the soccer hooligan-ism...