Many of you know and some of you may not that the women's soccer team is in Spain for an international experience. Just the returners are allowed to go by NCAA regulations. The Cowgirls are going to be sending us a daily blog highlighting their trip.
The first blog was sent in by Cowgirl senior defender Sarah Stansell. We hope to be updating this blog daily while the Cowgirls in Spain.
Sunday started early with us meeting at the field house at 5:00 a.m. in order to leave for DFW by 5:30. We were sitting there waiting for the bus to arrive when a maroon minivan pulled up. The driver stepped out and the first words we heard were “We have a major problem”. Needless to say, we knew we were not going to be leaving on time. It turns out that the bus would not turn on or something to that extent. Luckily, John Neese was there to save the day and got us the HSU vans to take to the airport. While loading the vans up, we were faced with another setback. One of the keys had been misplaced. We spent a little while looking for them and finally found them. It was not even six in the morning and we had already faced two problems that could have ruined our trip! It was shaping out to be an eventful trip. We finally got on the road around 5:50. We made it to DFW in the vans, checked in and went through security without a hitch.
We thought that our bad luck was over. Then we started to take off for New York. The take off started off like any other one except that about two seconds into it, the pilot slowed down. Apparently, a light had come on in the cockpit signaling that one of the wheels was not turning properly. We returned to the gate and stayed for 30 to 45 minutes in order for the wheel to get fixed. Once that was fixed, we were on our way to New York. We boarded our plane for Barcelona and thought we were about to leave but then the pilot came on the intercom. He informed us that maintenance was on the plane fixing a part. An hour later we took off on our seven hour flight to Barcelona. I do not think any of us had any difficulties falling asleep on that flight. We were all pretty wiped.
The next morning we finally reached Barcelona. Right after we got off the plane, we loaded our bus that would take us around the city. This bus was not like the buses in the United States. It was pretty small. Let’s just say that not all our luggage fit under the bus so we had to make an unplanned trip to our hotel first. After we dropped off our bags we loaded back on the bus to head to the heart of Barcelona.
Barcelona is not quite how I pictured it to be. That being said, I can’t paint a picture of what I thought it would look like. The architecture of Barcelona varies, ranging from modern to 16th century or older. The small street ways are what you see in the magazines and movies. They are beautiful. I am convinced that I can never capture how those buildings look like in my pictures and have almost given up on trying (however, I think I’ll still have to give it a try for the slight hope that I will be able to capture it in that one magical picture). While walking the streets of Barcelona, we went through a giant food market with fruit that looked impossible to pass up, saw a 16th century cathedral, and a gigantic fountain that centered one of Barcelona’s most beautiful squares.
After eating lunch in the city, we boarded the bus once more and headed over to FC Barcelona’s stadium, Nou Camp. This stadium was amazing! We took a tour around the stadium, took a picture on the ground level and even took a picture with the latest trophy they won, the Champions League Cup 2009. It was interesting to look at the massive amount of trophies FC Barcelona has won and look back at their history to see how they won so many. After a long visit to FC Barca’s official store, we headed to what is said to be Spain’s largest soccer store. While it was nice, it was not the best soccer store I had seen. However, we didn’t need a huge soccer store in order to find something to buy.
We headed back to our hotel after our soccer shopping spree. Our hotel is very close to the beach, so our tour guide took us on a walk to show us the way to the beach, local shops and restaurants. The little shops and restaurants almost have a boardwalk vibe to them. It was really nice to walk around in perfect weather and check out the local scene. We ended up splitting up and going to eat at different places.
I went with Mel, Carlyn and Amy. Others were going to go to a pizza restaurant, and me being the picky eater I am, was going to join them. However, Mel convinced me to try something local and not get something I could get in the US. We ended up going to some restaurant where we could not understand the menu. Mel can speak Spanish fairly well, but here in Spain, many speak Catalonian. Our waiter used some different words that Mel did not quite understand. Long story short, Mel ended up ordering the wrong thing. We had wanted an item on the menu that cost 12 Euros. However, the one Mel had ordered was 38 Euros. It was too late to change the order so we stuck with the 38 Euro dinner. It was our first stroke of luck! The food was amazing! It was beef (almost like sirloin) that was cook on the grill, served with potatoes and peppers. It ended up feeding the four of us perfectly and was probably the most economical purchase we could make. We ended our night with gelato before walking back to our hotel.
Our first day was amazing and seemed to last forever! I’m still having a hard time believing that while I am writing this at 11:00 in Barcelona, it is only 4:00 in Texas. I’m glad it’s 11:00 here. That means it’s time to sleep!!!! I’m so excited to lie down in a bed and sleep for more than 4 consecutive hours. I need my rest because we have the beach and a training session with a women’s professional team on tomorrow’s agenda!
Sarah Stansell
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