Expatiperro

Busy last day in Bangkok. Spent the morning at Dusit Park, a complex of Royal buildings, popping my head into a couple of museums on Thai art and Royal history. It's really a bit ridiculous just how much the Thais revere their monarchs- any mention of the king and queen is combined with adjectives like "generous", "noble", "kind and munificent", and "gracious and benelovent". Note to readers- my biography better include comparable descriptions of my life.

The best stop at the complex was a museum soley dedicated to the king's photographs. Turns out the guy has a thing for photgraphy, though if you let this mueseum describe it, he single-handedly revolutionized the art and lead Thailand to the vanguard of the medium. Looking at the photographs, I'm not sure I'd give him that much credit- there's a series of shots of literally puddles, and while I'm no art expert, it's hard to see too much artistic value in those. (The captions were also great- one credited his photographs for saving hundreds of lives in the aftermath of a flood 25 years ago, without saying exactly how that happened.) That being said, the pictures weren't bad, and it's pretty cool to have a monarch how was hobbies other than his consorts and waging wars.

Passed the rest of the day checking out what I was missing by not being a backpacker here on Khao San Road, had an amazing lunch at a hole-in-the-wall local place (only foreigner there, score!), and picked up some Buddha souvenirs for future gift-giving (lay your claims now). Wish I had more time to write and post photos, but traffic and a tight schedule tonight have conspired to leave me with nearly none.

In a couple hours, I'll be on a night train to Laos. Not sure what to expect, though something tells me that Southeast Asian trains lack certain frills that one might find on European ones. Here's hope that beds aren't among those. All I know for sure is that in 12 hours, I'll be walking across the Mekong River into Laos- seems that the train doesn't actually go into Laos, but instead stops just short of it- and getting a chance to experience what Thailand would have been like 50 years ago. Slow paced, quiet, and ridiculously cheap.

Looking forward to the chill-out. Catch you all from the other side of the river.

Three days into the trip, and fatigue has been a constant companion. I'm not sure how much that is due to the lingering effects of jetlag, but it's a given that most of it is due to just being in Bangkok- a bustling, hyperkinetic, and energy-taxing city if there ever was one. Traffic jams are a constant, walking down the street is a full-contact sport, and there are people and activity everywhere- no where else does the phrase "teeming masses" apply more than here.

Because of all this, I'm especially grateful for my lodging situation with my cousin Seth on the outskirts of the city. The housing development we're in looks more Florida than Thailand- there's a man-made lake, luxury cars parked in most driveways, and its SO quiet, which is wonderful after spending the day being auditorily assaulted by motorcycle engines and car horns. I have my own big room, private Western style bathroom (no squat toilets! toilet paper!), and the use of Seth's maid and personal driver. I'm fully aware that I'm being spoiled rotten- passing fellow Western tourists today in the city, I kinda felt bad for them and their hostel lodgings- but I like to think that this is karma for whatever future shady hostels/campsites I'll be in during the next few months. But for now, I'm thoroughly enjoying the amazing meals, getting my laundry done, and having my own ride into Bangkok whenever I feel like going sightseeing.

As for the sightseeing- I'm still trying to figure this place out, but the best description I can come up with is that Bangkok is a dense modern city built on top of a modest old one. The 'on top' part is especially apt, as traces of "Old Bangkok" are few and far between. I couldn't help but laugh when Seth's driver, as we were driving into the city yesterday, pointed out a pretty old wraught-iron building and made special note that it was old. How old? I asked. "Oh, fifty, sixty years!" was his sincere response. Lest I think that this was an isolated case, today he pointed out two more old buildings both built around the same time as the previous one, and he gave special mention to a hundred-year old train station as being especially historic. I guess that in a city where change is a constant, "oldness" is a relative concept.

However, not everything is shiny and new in Bangkok, and I've spent my time here visiting some of the relatively more ancient sites. First on Wednesday's agenda was the Royal Palace and the Phra Kaew Temple, both in the same complex, and built around the time of the city's founding in the mid 18th century. The site was basically a fantasyland of Thai architecture- spires shooting up to the sky, gold gables and roof decorations, everything a little too oversized, which the pictures below show well.

What the pictures don't capture is just how seriously people here take the monarchy, which is kinda impossible to overstate. The King and Queen's pictures are all over Bangkok, on buildings, on billboards in the medians, on money, and it's illegal to insult or show disrespect towards the royal family. Knowing the history of Thailand though, it's hard to blame the Thais- the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand's name until the 1930s) was the only country in the area to resist European colonization and maintain its monarchy. If I were Thai, I'd be proud of that heritage, too.

Finally in Bangkok, after what seemed like an eternity (but in reality only a slightly shorter 20 hours) on the plane and in the Taipei airport. I flew on China Airlines, which I should not have done for a number for reasons, but especially because even the woman that sold me by ticket said it was a terrible carrier. Narrow seats, not much leg room, food that even a prisoner would turn down, and an in-flight movie that was either an infomercial about Austria or a documentary about Classical music. I was too doped up on sleeping pills to tell, though the drugs probably made the film more entertaining.

While that movie was great, even better was the informational video they played right before we landed in Thailand, titled "Fascinating Bangkok: Culture and Diversity". Using the cutting edge 1980 effects of synthesizer music and neon graphics, the film presented Bangkok in all its glory, and told us what to expect- which, judging from what was shown on screen, would be a chorus line of smiling monks, smiling old women on boats, and smiling youth in school uniforms playing in parks.

Sadly, I was greeted by none of those people when I got off the plane (these videos are obviously made to manipulate your hopes), but the actual greeters might have been better. At the airport to meet me was my cousin Seth and his driver, Tueng. Seth has lived in Bangkok for the past 15 years working as an architect, and he's been gracious enough to host me at his house in a gorgeous and spacious housing development just outside of the city. It's great having a home base while I'm settling into my travels, and especially great because I haven't seen Seth in years, and it's been fun to catch up. That he has a person who cooks for him, and who just might have prepared me a fantastic Thai dinner, also doesn't hurt things. :-)

So here I am, trying not to succumb to sleep at 8:30pm, and trying to process the change of scenery that's occurred around me in the past 24 hours. Quick first impressions of Bangkok:

• It's hot. Like, a thick, stifling, muggy heat, one that fogs up your glasses when you step outside and makes you feeel like you're moving through molasses.
• A disconcertingly large number of Thais are wearing thos anti-SARS face masks (though sadly I have yet to see one with a Hello Kitty design. Sorry Grant.). Whether this is to protect themselves from the pollution here, or a potential H1N1 pandemic is up in the air. Whether these masks are an effective prophylactic against either, I'll leave that for you to say.
• Bangkok is big, and it sprawls. Lots of traffic, too.

I would write more, but the last two bulletpoints were done with my eyes closed, which might mean that my body is sending me a message; Talk soon!

Well, it seems that my last year-long adventure abroad wasn't enough to satisfy my wanderlust. I'm setting off tomorrow on a four month trip through Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, crossing off about half of the items on my list of "Places I Need to See Before I Die" and covering nearly 20,000 miles of land. In lieu of writing out the ridiculously long list of where we're going (you'll get a complete rundown of our destinations as they unfold), here's something a little easier on the eyes:


I'm starting off in Bangkok on the 1st, making my way solo around Southeast Asia for 10 days before meeting up with my travel buddy, Kyle, in Beijing. Then it's onto the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which we'll take across the steppes of Mongolia, the forests of Siberia, and the Urals to Moscow and St. Petersburg. We'll cross over into Finland, hop on a ferry to Estonia, and buy (yes, BUY) a car. With said car, we'll meander across Eastern Europe for 6 weeks, catch a plane from Greece to Cairo, lead Beduins in an uprising against the Turks (oops, got carried away, sorry), and finally end up in Dubai befre heading back to London.

Kyle's introduction should also say that he is the mastermind behind this expedition- if it weren't for his invitation, extended only 5 weeks ago, for me to join him, I'd probably be spending the fall trolling Craigslist (for jobs!), sitting on my butt, and feeling listless and unfulfilled. As it happens, I'll probably be spending my winter doing just that, but if there's any reason to put off that fate, this trip would be it.

My expectations for this trip are none. All I know for sure is that whatever happens, I'll have amazing stories to tell, great photos and videos to share, and memories to last me more than this lifetime. Keep checking in- I'll be posting pictures regularly, and I'll also be making short videos of each of the different places we visit, for more of a intimate view of the sights and the joys (and surely the frustrations) of traveling.

Bags are packed, tickets are in hand, and the plane is warming up its engines. It's go time. Enjoy the stories.

-Matt

First off, apologies again for my lackluster blogging habits, and for leaving you all hanging about my time in Istanbul. I could write several posts about just my last few days there, but given that I'm short on time (for reasons that you'll discover soon), I'll just say that it was a wonderful break from my life in Barcelona, which put my teaching life behind me and gave me some perspective on my previous 9 months there. In my two weeks of travels, I met a lot of great people, drew up some future travel plans based on their advice, and had a fantastic time exploring Istanbul, one of the most fascinating places I've ever visited.

And now I'm back in Barcelona, soaking up my last full day as a resident of the city. My bags are 95% packed; my furniture is nearly all sold or pawned off; and I'm putting off taking down the posters on my wall until he last possible moment, as seeing bare walls would really make my impending departure that much more real.

The most frequent question I get asked when people know I'm going home is whether I'm sad to be leaving Barcelona. I really hate this question, not because it isn't valid (I would certainly be curious as well), but because any straight-forward answer would be too simplistic and leave out most of my real feelings. So the result is a rambling, convoluted mess of an answer that reflects my own unsettled thoughts about my feelings. Of course I'm sad to leave Barcelona- my time here has been one extended adventure since I arrived in September, and I'm just getting to the point where I feel like I know- really KNOW- the city and could almost call myself a local. My job here was engaging and interesting, with the added benefit of allowing my to support myself on 20 hours a week of work. The friends that I've made here are some of the closest people in my life, people from whom I've learned an immense amount. In short, I wouldn't trade my experience living in Barcelona for anything in the world.

So am I sad to leave the city? Yes. But I'm also excited to go back home. One aspect of living abroad is that when faced with a different culture and set of habits from the ones that you're used to from home, you end up reflecting a lot on your old way or life, and and you challenge your preconceptions on how the world, and by extension you, should work. Through this process, you realize one of three things- I really like things in this new country; I really like things in my old country; or I like things from both countries. Not to sound like Uncle Sam, but after nearly a year in Spain, I've come out feeling more American than before. I miss BBQ ribs, weekday afternoon baseball games, and the undeniable convenience of American shopping. I miss friendly, positive attitudes, a sense of destiny, and the belief that tomorrow will undoubtedly be better than today. And most of all, I miss my family, my friends, and my home.

This year has been an incredible learning experience. Among other things, I've learned how to talk constructively to children, and the related fact that kids are not dogs; how to manage my own finances; and how to live independently, and in a foreign language to boot. I've developed a new-found appreciation for European style; expanded my pork-related cooking repertoire by 800%; and come to enjoy shopping in open-air produce markets. I've conquered the manual transmission (in a medieval Italian city!); discovered my inner interior designer; and realized that the best way to learn a new language is to make a continuous fool of yourself for almost a full year.

There's a lot more that I can write now, but I'm off to prepare for my last Barcelona experience. And this one's a doozy- the first concert on U2's new worldwide tour. Sure, the new album kinda blows, and we'll be sitting too far away to see or hear much of anything, but at least I can take solace in the fact that when Bono closes the show with "Beautiful Day" (which he just HAS to do), he'll be singing it just for me. And what an end to my Barcelona year that will be.

I'm back on the roof of the hostel after my third full day in Istanbul, and it's about time I write down all of the incredible things I've seen here before they all blend together and it's too late.

The Hagia Sophia, on the other hand, is no letdown at all. Yes, from the outside it looks like a pile of bricks and butresses (built to keep the dome from falling in for the 4th time) and I was expecting the inside to disappoint, but what it lacks in outside appearances it more than makes up for with its interior. Simply and crudely put, its GIRNORMOUS- which is especially impressive considering that half of it is taken up by floor to ceiling scaffolding due to restoration work. If Istanbul is a place where East meets West, then the Hagia Sophia is the collision point- built in 540 AD under a Christian Roman Emperor, you can still see 1000 year old mosaics on the walls and ceilings; turned into a mosque after the Muslim conquest in 1450, there are huge panels with Arabic script hanging from the walls. I could keep writing forever about how breathtaking it is, and pictures don't really do it justice- the only way to get the full picture is to see it yourself.


My last big stop on the first day was the Bascilica Cisterns, which outdate the other two but are a new addition to the tourist route, having recent been discovered and restored only 20 years ago. Basically, what is it is a huge underground water storage room, but built with way more craftmanship than it really deserves. Columns pillaged from Roman temples; column bases made out of Medusa faces; beautifully vaulted ceilings; dim lighting to make it all seem even more mysterious; and best of all on a hot day, 65 degree temps. Props to Alex and Andrea for giving me the heads up on this- the Bascilica Cisterns definitely rival the other two destiniations on the day.


On the way back to my hostel for the day, I made one last stop- the little Hagia Sophia, a church-turned-mosque built at the same time at its big brother. But unlike the real Hagia Sophia, this one was free of the tourist hoards- or really any tourists, for that matter. It had also just been restored, so the inside as perfectly preserved, with painted Muslim designs on the ceiling above columns still displaying the monogram of the Byzantine emperor who built it. In addition to being quiet and clean, it's also an active mosque, which led to a really cool moment: taking pictures of the interior of the mosque while someone was praying (which sounded vaguely like a Jewish prayer), putting the amazing acoustics on full display. Sadly, the moment was interrupted when the caretaker decided that that it would be a perfect time to vacuum the floor. Oh well, it was cool while it lasted.

Day two and three, next up...

Why hello there. It's been a while, hasn't it? I feel that I owe you all an apology, but instead of that, I'll jump right into whats been going on in my life the past month (and flesh out the title of this post a bit).

Springtime in Barcelona has been fab. The weather's turned from intermittently sunny and warm/overcast and cold to a steady partly cloudy and 75 degrees, to the extent that I don't even need to look at the weather forecast to know what I'll need to wear. I've been taking advantage of the weather to do the things I've neglected to do up until- tan at the beach, play ping pong on the outdoor tables scattered around the city, lunch on sidewalk cafes. The company on these activities hasn't been bad, either. I've made a handful of new friends, including David, an American who's here on a research fellowship to study linguistic nationalist movements, but he seems to spend most of his time wandering the city and tempting me with new adventures. My super-cool friend Elena also stopped by for a week on her way back from a semester spend doing research in rural Senegal. I can't even begin to imagine the culture shock that she must have experience on her return to civilization, but part of what makes her super-cool is her cheery disposition and positive attitude, and it was great to catch up over tapas, the riots on Las Ramblas after Barça won the European Club Soccer Championships, and day trips to the countryside.

On the job front, I'm happy to report that I no longer have one. I gave my boss three weeks notice in mid-May, and I was let go at the end of that month after he found my replacement. I expected that I'd be a little more upset about this than I actually was, but at the same time, I haven't found ti that liberating, either. I suppose that just living in Barcelona and working 20 hours a week is liberating enough; additionally, with my clock ticking down on my time in Europe (just three more weeks left), it was a matter of time before my employment had to come to an end.

Now that I am uncommitted and independent, I'm backpacking around Europe for the first time since I've moved over here. I spent three days in Oxford, England, visiting my close friend Jason, who's there doing a Ph.D. in politics. I was taken aback at how much I liked Oxford- it's the prototypical university town, a mix of Yale and Hogwarts, and about the only place where college students can live in a real castle. Jason showed me a fantatic time, taking us punting (think Venetian gondoliers, but without the uniforms or class), allowing me to peek my heads into all the Gothic colleges around town, and introducing me to such Oxfordian pursuits as formal college dinners and pints at The Truf (the pub where Bill Clinton didn't inhale).

And after a 12 hour trip, I now find myself in Istanbul, looking out at sunset onto Asia across the Bosphorus, listening to the evening call to prayer being sung from the minarets of the Blue Mosque. I can't really give too detailed of a description, since I haven't wandered far from my hostel yet, but so far, the striking things about the city have been its minarets, flags, and water. Flying into the city and driving into it, you can see hundreds of slender and elegant minarets piercing the sky above the city, and the mosques that they're attached to are made of overlapping, seemingly floating domes. Turkish flags are everywhere- this country is as nationalist as it's made out to be- and from the roof of my hostel I can make out four GIANT one about 5 miles away. And water- it's hard to say strongly enough just how much the Bosphorus shapes the city, both in its layout, and in its character. Orhan Pamuk, in his memoirs of growing up here, writes that the Bosphorus is the oul of the city, and from my 6 hours here it's hard to disporve that claim. Once I walk around tomorrow, though, I'll be sure to check it out in more depth.

I'm in a great state of mind now, refreshed by my time in England (being surrounded by English was such a treat), and ready to dive into another culture. If you have any tips on what I can do here, don't hesitate to let me know.

Apologies for not posting more frequent and timely updates. I would make the excuse that my life here is uneventful, normal, and boring, but the truth of the matter is that I've just been too lazy and unmotivated to post. Let's fix that...

Two weekends ago, I went with my Sardinia companion and general travel buddy Grant to Malta. A little geographical background- Malta is a country just south of Sicily made up of three islands, but whose total land area is only about 300 square miles (about the size of Queens). It's a little difficult to conceptualize just how small a 300 square mile country is without seeing it for yourself, but as a rough idea, from Malta's highest point, you can see over half of the country. On a map, the lone airport's runway seems to run half the length of the main island. And traveling from one end of the country to the other by a public bus and ferry takes about 2 hours. On bad roads. With traffic. Get the picture?


The inspiration for this trip was Grant's desire to visit North Africa or someplace near it to practice his Arabic, but the motivation for the trip came from the €10 roundtrip tickets we found on Ryanair's website. (How they make money selling tickets that cheap is beyond me, but I only wish they could do that in the States, too.) Between the time when we bought the tickets and actually got on the plane, I did some reading on Malta, which gave me the impression that Malta was like England, but with more sun and religion- it's an Anglophone country, is famous for its beaches and nightlife, and is incredibly Catholic. Reading these description, I convinced myself that going to Malta would be a good preview of what I would be like to return home and deal with the culture shock. People speaking English all the time, food that doesn't all contain ham, American meal schedules- I was psyched about visiting a US-lite.

But oh boy, was I ever wrong. Malta is by far the most unique, eccentric place that I've ever visited, and my expectations could not have been more wrong. Some general impressions:

• Malta is technically an Anglophone country, thanks to being an English colony up to its independence in 1964. But the language that we heard most often was Maltese, which sounds like Arabic, but with an Italian accent. If you're trying to imagine how that sounds, just think of someone speaking a slurred Hebrew and randomly accenting various syllables while gesticulating wildly. And if that sounds strange, the way Maltese is written is even stranger. Total gibberish to an outsider. The langauge is a result of Malta's history- because of its strategic location, it's been fought over for thousands of years, and at various points has been ruled by the Phonecians, Romans, Arabs, Italians, French (for two months), British, and anyone else who wanted to control the Mediterranean.
• SO CATHOLIC. I was expecting this before coming, since Malta was ruled for a few centuries by the Knights of Malta, a super Catholic order whose members were European nobility. It's said that Malta has one church for every 1,000 people (or 400 churches for a population of 400,000), but the reality never hit me until we arrived and saw that the skyline was composed almost entirely of steeples and crosses, literally one per city block (we counted 13 just from our hotel window). And these were not small churches; on the contrary, they were all substantial buildings, especially one on the island of Gozo which supposedly is one of the biggest domes in the entire world- you could literally see it from half of Malta.
• SO OLD. In addition to all of the countries that have ruled Malta in recorded history, there are also megalithic ruins from an unknown civilization that date from before Stonehenge. And these aren't just piles of stones- they are entire buildings (including the world's oldest free standing ones), catacombs, and temples which were all intricately carved and painted, and whose designs you can still see today. These ruins are everywhere- some were found when farmers stuck shovels in the ground- and just incredible to see. The most impressive one was the Hypogeum at Hal-Saflieni, a three story temple/burial chamber carved entirely underground, and designed to look similar to the above ground temples of the time, 4,000 years ago. You can't help after seeing these sites, especailly the Hypogeum, rethinking your conception of the ancient world, and wondering what other things that they were capable of doing, which didn't survive the years.
• SO CHEAP. As unexpected as everything else was in Malta, nothing could have prepared me for the ridiculously cheap prices on just about everything in the country. Our deluxe hotel room with views of the Grand Harbour? €50. A delicious, filling lunch with drinks? €7. Bus fare from the capital, Valletta, to any point in the country? Less than 80¢. And while admissions to historical sites and museums wasn't dirt cheap, they did give 50% student discounts. After me playing Grant's sugardaddy in Sardinia, it was nice that neither of us had to worry about money the entire trip.

So now back to the travelogue. Grant and I arrived in Malta bright and early on Saturday morning, took a bus to Valletta and checked into our hotel, and immediately set out to explore the city. Three hours later, with the city throroughly explored, we caught a bus (admittedly one of the most exciting parts of the day- Malta's buses are from the 1960, lack doors, are covered in handpainted designs, and have amazing names the the Duple Dominator, Tiger Cub, and Rocky) to the twin cities of Mdina and Rabat, where we checked out some Roman catacombs, ate some delicious Maltese pastries, and looked inside a couple of grossly oversized churches. A full day in the books, we caught the bus back to Valletta, napped and supped, and then caught an amazing stroke of luck. The annual fireworks was supposed to end of the day before Grant and I arrived, much to our disappointment. But due to "tehcnical difficulties" (i.e. prematurely exploding fireworks), the final night of the festival was pushed back to our first night in Malta- which, in a double stroke of luck, we got to enjoy from our hotel room window, which overlooked the Harbour. Note to my readers: You have not lived until you have seen 30 minute fireworks show choreographed to the Star Wars soundtrack.

The next day began with a 6:30am wake-up call to claim tickets to see the Hypogeum. Because of its fragile state, the government only allows 70 people per day in, which means that tickets sell out at least two weeks in advance. But being the sympathetic people that they are, the authorities leave open one tour a day for procrastinators like us. The catch? Having to get up a an ungodly hour the day before to claim the tickets, and having to pay €20 per person. But still, it was well worth it, and also a great opportunity to make friends with the other die-hard tourists. Tickets in hand, we decided to spend the day visiting the island of Gozo, the supposed home on Calypso's cave, and a bucolic escape from the only-slightly-less bucolic main island. This trip, however, required us to cross the entire country, a feat we accomplished on public buses in two hours for 80¢. Gozo proved to be a little too bucolic for our tastes, perhaps because it was Sunday and NOTHING was open, but it was a nice place to chill for a day.

On our last day in Malta was dedicated to seeing neolithic temples, walking around Valletta, and poking our heads in chuches to see what was inside (highlights included a Caravaggio painting, St. John's wristbone, and the column on which he was decapitated). Up to this point, nothing in the trip has done anything to make me feel like I was an an American-type country, or at least make me remember what it's like to be at home. So to solve this problem, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. Trashy? Yes. The best BBQ I've had since leaving the US? Definitely. Any regrets? None whatsoever.

Our trip ended the next day with a mad dash to the airport, and a reminder of how cheap our airfare really was- the 15 minute taxi ride to the airport cost double what we paid for the 2 hour flight. We landed in Girona, said our goodbyes (until our next trip, anyone have exotic suggestions?), and I booked it back to Barcelona for a full day of teaching. All in all, it was an exhausting trip, but in the best possible way. I feel so lucky to have seen a culture and country so different than any I'd experienced before, and one that challenged my assumptions on history, human progress, Catholic ferverency, and general afforability. Now if only the rest of the world could be so cheap...

A lazy Saturday morning found me browsing the internet absentmindedly. Stumbling on this site, I saw a postcard confessional which had me kicking myself for not having thought of it earlier:


Granted, the vocabulary that my students learn does have a decidedly West-coast slant. Particular teaching highlights include "hella" and "hecka" as amplifiers, "chillin'" as a synonym for "hanging out", and "royally POed" to describe intense frustration. But I wish that I had been fiendish enough to intentionally mess with my students' vocabulary. I mean, how funny would it be to hear Spaniards talk about how "whack" a situation is?

So I'm sitting in the living room, reading some political blogs after having finished dinner. The radio's on in the background: it's tuned to the Champion's League soccer semifinal match between Barça and Chelsea, and Barça's losing 1-0. The result of this game will decide who will go on to the finals and have a chance to win the European soccer club title. Due to the vagaries of the competition rules, all Barça has to do to advance is tie; Chelsea needs to win. It's not too much of a stretch to say that nearly the entire city is tuned in to the match; there's nothing more dear to Barcelonans than their blaugrana.

Anyways, I'm sitting at my computer, when from out of nowhere and simultaneously, my flatmate starts screaming, car horns go off, and a cheer from what sounds like thousands of people erupts from outside. Barça had just scored the tying goal in the FINAL minute, and when the match was whistled over shortly thereafter, the pandemonium only intensified. Right now, just a minute after Barça officially moved onto the finals, I can still hear annoucers jabbering away excitedly on the radio, cheering from outside, fireworks, and car horns. If I didn't know the origin of these noises, I would fear for my safety.

As my stunned flatmate said, "Que fort." Que fort, indeed. I imagine I'll be hearing about this match for days, and I'll definitely be hearing its aftermath all tonight. I'm just glad that I don't have early classes tomorrow...