Fútbol, Clubs, and Cool Kids

Crowd waiting for Real Madrid outside their Hotel

The other night I was talking about how we were able to see Real Madrid, one of my favorite teams, enter their hotel amongst a huge crowd of fans and onlookers. Well yesterday was the big game, and it was a very interesting experience. Summer and I were leaving the metro in the main Plaza, right by the Hotel Carlton, when we once again stumbled upon huge crowds, this time waiting for the team to leave their hotel. We waited for about a half hour with the crowd, and I was amazed to see that not only was it teenagers and young adults waiting to see these famous players, but the elderly had come out, as well as toddlers. Families and couples maneuvered strollers and stood in the middle of the road - and then I understood the importance of soccer in Spain. Just as Summer and I were about to give up and continue shopping, the team left the hotel, and we had perfect spots to see them enter and walk down the aisle of the coach bus. Of course I was waving, and screaming, and pointing out all my favorite players to Summer, thinking that everyone else was following suit. Not until all of the players had entered the bus and sat down did I actually look around and realize this was not the case. I was surrounded by people wearing the red and white stripes of the Bilbao team; people were spitting at the bus, children were energetically flipping the bird at the bus, and waving basque and anti-madrid flags...oops! That's when I realized why the riot police were present around the bus and why police with large guns were stationed at every corner of the bus route. Basque Country is largely known for its Basque nationalism and strong provincial pride, and the rest of the night I could see Basque flags and the red and white of Club Athletico throughout town. Good thing Bilbao won, or else there would of been heads rolling for sure.

Last night some of the girls and I had our first weekend night out in Spain. Most people say the nightlife here is crazy and goes until the sun goes up, so of course we were all excited. We had decided to try going to this hip-hop club called Club Fever, which ended up being in the middle of nowhere down a long abandoned street in the side of a warehouse. As we walked down the street, it was like something from a movie...there were all these cars parked on the side of the road, with people sitting around them blasting music and cars racing down the street. It seemed pretty cool until we realized that the cover charge was 12 euros and that the other clubbers hanging out with their cars and drinking openly from bottles, looked like they were about 16 years old. Needless to say, we didn't end up going to the club and somehow ended up eating gyros and making friends with a older, Russian-sounding, chain-smoker at a Pakistani bar at 2:30am instead..which leads me to my final observation of the day...

Cool kids. The kids here are just too cool...way cooler than I can ever hope to be. A couple nights ago I saw a 10 year old boy on the metro listening to an ipod and texting friends at 11 o'clock at night. Last night these high school kids, who are always dressed fabulously, racing cars, going to clubs, and drinking openly in front of cops (the drinking age is 16 here)...waves of kids were on the metro at 3am, awake and ready to find a new bar to try out..and here we Americans are, in our 20s, asking kids almost half our age where cool clubs and bars are. Maybe it's because they speak a different language, or it's the culture, but the kids in Spain are just damn cool!

written by

Laura Hanson on January 17, 2010 from Bilbao, Spain

from the travel blog: Un Semestre en España

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