Goals and Gols

About a year ago, I was spending quite a bit of time exploring options for “my life, the universe, and everything.” I met frequently with a friend who is particularly skilled at making sense out of organized chaos, namely my life. One evening, he suggested that I identify some goals for the next year, three years, and five years.

It was excellent advice, and I appreciated the reminder. I’ve always been a big fan of lists, from items to get at the store to ranking my top ten CDs. Goal setting goes right along with that, and I had slacked off documenting my goals in recent years. Without too much effort, I put together three sets of goals, and after putting them down on paper, was able to read them, reread them, and reread them. I noticed that once the goals were documented on paper, they sort of stared back at me, daring me to take action, achieve them, and thus be able to check them off the list, particularly the one year goals.

My friend, when reviewing my list, remarked that I’d put nothing down about relationships, girlfriends, marriage, etc…in any of the lists. The key here is, “achievable and realistic,” I replied, only half-jokingly.

Being able to measure progress is an important part of goal setting. True, some goals are easier to measure than others. I used to work at a place where they never would really tell us what the target profit was, then they would try to hold us accountable for the results. Not only did I find this really dumb (and mentioned this more than once in the conference room), it was incredibly frustrating. Besides the inability to achieve results (against what target?), my professional side took a hit as it becomes tremendously difficult to convince yourself to get up and go to work each day when you don’t even know if you’re accomplishing anything.

Here in April 2006, I took a moment to review the list I wrote last year, and have been very pleased with progress. The number one objective last year was to simply change jobs, I think I’ve done that. One of the other big objectives was to improve my Spanish. I’m fairly certain I can safely check that goal off the list. Smoking level down, fitness level up. Check.

When I arrived in Spain a couple of months ago, I drew up a new set of objectives for 2006. The short list came easily: live a better life, be a better person, and take advantage of every opportunity. Yes, pretty vague, but still measurable.

For example, I got to put a tick in the “take advantage of every opportunity” category a couple of Saturdays ago when I went to the Grand Prix in Valencia to see some Formula 1 racing. I’d never been to a car race before, but Fran had an extra ticket, and he, Daniel and I spent a few hours out at the track. Ultimately, I confirmed that the cars go really fast. I once had a colleague that absolutely lived for this stuff. After sitting in the grandstand and feeling the rush as a race car roared past, I now better understand what he was raving about. Groovy.

Easter is quite the holiday experience in Spain, but I have seen a lot of the processions during Semana Santa before. During Easter break, though, everyone either leaves town for the holidays, or stays local because they are participating in the activities of the week. Fran’s brother Xuso and family were involved every night in a procession...all of them.
We ended up staying local ourselves, which ultimately made things a bit close. Unfortunately, we’d been unable to find suitable accommodations for our own weekend get away, since the rest of the country was already doing the same.

Thus, the past couple of weeks have been a bit quiet. I did manage to pick up a few extra classes, and also did some intercambios to keep myself occupied. I’m fortunate that my sister and folks were around, otherwise I might have forgotten my birthday. We had a little barbeque on Easter Monday, along with a cake my sister made, and now I’m 36. Thanks to everyone for the e-cards, well wishes, and emails. It really means a lot.

For me, April has additional significance beyond taxes, Easter, and my birthday. It’s the time of year when things really start to heat up on the football front. Valencia CF has been doing well in domestic play, and I told the coach Quique Sanchez Flores as much when I got to meet him a few weeks back. I had just come from a pub where I watched Arsenal get through to the semifinals in Champs League. I had a few beers in me, and of course I was sporting a bright red Arsenal jersey, which probably didn’t leave the best impression, but I still got his autograph, and he called me his buddy. I think I did gain a little respect when I inquired about one of his injured midfielders, a player who actually played for Arsenal the year before. VCF didn’t compete in Champs League this year, but will likely finish a very nice season as runners up in La Liga. Well done.

Arsenal, on the other hand, have had a sub par domestic run, which is very frustrating when you consider their accomplishments of recent years. However, they’re on the verge of reaching the final of Champs League; if things go well tonight, they’ll play in the final for the first time ever.

Despite the poor domestic season for Arsenal, it’s an historic year, as this is their last season at Highbury, where they’ve played since 1913. Next season, which starts in August, they’ll play in a newly constructed stadium close by.

I was fully aware of this last April when I added, “get to Highbury for a match” to my list of one years goal. At the time, I didn’t know that I’d be moving to Spain, but I’d also discovered that Chris and Lori were pregnant with Regan, who was born just after the season started last August With so much happening in the second half of 2005, neither Chris nor myself really thought too much about getting to a game. We both had sort of agreed to look for options, but meanwhile, kept telling ourselves that the season was really long. There would be plenty of time.

Suddenly, it was March 2006, and young McKee and I looked at a calendar to realize that we had about three home matches left at Highbury to choose from, which sort of narrowed the window.

We selected a date, Chris got permission, and we found flights to England (Chris – Dallas – London, Bryan – Valencia – Londres). Hotels weren’t as easy to find, but Chris did well to get us into a place in Islington, North London. Home of Highbury.

As we started to pat ourselves on the back and say, “wow, we’ve organized a weekend getaway in no time at all!” I checked the internet to see about tickets for the football match, and was alarmed to see that I might have to sell a vital organ. I was aware that we were hoping to see Arsenal – Tottenham, a right London derby, which would make things very difficult. Ticket availability would be scarce at best.

Last Friday, April 21st, I left Valencia for London Stanstead via Ryan Air then took a train to Liverpool Street Station, and arrived at the hotel to find that Chris, who had arrived earlier in the day, had checked in, but wasn’t there at the moment. Reception issued me a key to the room, anyway, and after stowing my gear, I walked around town to find an ATM, and hopefully Chris.

I located an ATM with no problem, then walked right by the pub Chris was in on my way to order a drink for myself in the hotel pub. Chris walked in moments later, and the weekend officially began.

Over a drink or two, we quickly caught up on the events of Dallas and Spain, then discussed the important question of just how in the hell we’d find tickets for this match, and how much would we have to pay?

After the girl at reception agreed to keep alert and notify me if tickets became available (not that her laughter gave me much hope…she’d initially exclaimed, “Do you TRULY understand how big this match is ?!?!”), we walked around Islington a little inquiring about tickets, then took the tube out to Highbury.

Chris rides the tube as if he’s been doing it all his life, and has an impressive ability to find the easiest route to said destination in a matter of seconds, from any point in the city.

We arrived at Highbury stadium (whoops, I almost wrote hallowed ground, which would have made me the millionth person to try to use that phrase with a sports arena), and it is impressive. And small. Like any other stadium that didn’t have a game being played in it at the exact moment, it was really quiet. I needed a few moments to take it all in, as this was my very first trip to North London. Highbury sits in the middle of a residential area, not unlike Wrigley Field, or to some extent, Fenway Park. The new stadium will be 500 meters away, but still in the neighborhood. People can literally go home and take the laundry off the line during half time if they want. It’s a concept a bit foreign to this Dallas native, who thinks the soccer stadium in Dallas is right next to the middle of nowhere. I definitely prefer the neighborhood scene.

The team store was already closed for the day, and we hadn’t seen anyone standing around holding two tickets for sale. Thus, we were about to head back to the tube, when I recognized some other guests from our hotel, some fathers and sons who had come for the game, too. It made sense that we try to seek their insights on our problem. We followed them up the road to the team entrance to the stadium, then realized that the Arsenal players were arriving one by one to board the team bus, which would take them to their hotel for the night, standard practice in sports the night before a game.

I felt rather like a giddy school boy as we stood with a few other folks to catch a glimpse of Arsenal players as they drove inside the gate. Lehmann showed up in a Mercedes hatchback, Senderos rolled by in a Range Rover, Pires drove a massive Lincoln Navigator, and Reyes was driven in a Mercedes sedan.

I wasn’t the only giddy one. The Irish group was just as excited to see the players, and they had some particularly humorous remarks about the whole scene. Chris isn’t shy, and struck up a conversation with these guys, and they immediately tried to offer words of support. “Lads, it’s going to be very tricky, being a derby and all,” they said, but one of them took my phone number and promised to call if they came across anyone with tickets.

Chris suggested that we go to Leicester Square, which has a lot of brokers selling theatre tickets. It was worth a look to see if they might have match tickets, too. Nope. No luck.

The square was a bit touristy, but we found a pub to hide in. We were both a bit antsy about the ticket hunt, but pints always helps the situation. I took advantage of cask conditioned Abbot Ale, and Chris jumped on the Guinness.

We went pint for pint, and had some potato wedges, fish and chips, along with some hearty English mustard. A nice chat, several hours, and I don’t remember how many pints later, we tubed back out to our stop at Angel. From there, we headed down the street to another pub.

Sobriety became just a memory, and we found ourselves in yet another put sitting on a rooftop terrace. The barman didn’t have match tickets, nor did he have any good ideas about getting any by game time. He did, however, kindly help me to clean out my loose change, which had grown to a colossal mound in my pocket. Pints in England have odd prices, like 3 pounds 21 pence, which accumulates a lot of coinage if you pay in notes, as we had been doing throughout the evening.

The terrace was nice, but getting cold. Chris grabbed his coat, and we hung out a bit more. That meant another pint. They closed at 11, which prompted us to go down the street to an Indian restaurant.

In the curry house, we both ordered the multicourse menu, but the day had caught up with me, and I was no longer hungry by the time the food started to come out. Chris, on the other hand, proceeded to chow down, finishing all of his menu, and a good bit of mine. Quite the impressive display, and a small reversal from the late nights at IHOP, Denny’s, or wherever where I’ve been known to have eaten $20 worth of food in a single sitting, while Chris had only a side of hash browns.

By midnight, I needed sleep, so we returned to the hotel and crashed.

I didn’t feel top notch on Saturday morning, but after a fried breakfast at the hotel (ooh! quite lovely for a hangover!) I felt a bit better. We bumped into our Irish friends, who were loading up on carbs themselves.

Around 10, we decided to go for broke, literally. After politely declining the offer of a taxi with the Irish, Chris and I hit the ATMs, cashed up, then headed for Highbury on the tube.

Saturday, April 22nd, might be the very best day in the history of English weather: bright sunshine, a cool breeze, pleasant temperature…and two guys shitting their pants because they didn’t have match tickets to Arsenal-Tottenham three hours before match time.

Chris and I were in our kits, and received appreciative looks from other fans on the metro. We met two guys en route who had flown in from South Africa the night before, and I could have sworn I heard one of them murmur, “Wow, you guys are fucked,” after realizing we were ticketless.

When we initially got on the tube at Angel, the queue was so big that a man opened up the turnstile and advised us to pay at the other end. We gladly did this, though we didn’t know exactly what was going on. No worry. At the Highbury stop, a nice lady sold us two day passes for the tube, then wrote us a receipt, clearly this is something they do frequently to maximize efficiency on the tube.

We exited the tube station onto Gillespie road, into the mass of Arsenal. Policemen on horseback were everywhere, and excited fans and vendors crowded the streets around the stadium. We scouted about a little, then I realized that no one was going to just hold up a sign saying FOR SALE: 2 TICKETS; REASONABLY PRICED; AVAILABLE FOR 2 AMERICAN IDIOTS WHO DIDN’T BUY TICKETS IN ADVANCE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

Chris has always had good luck acquiring tickets right outside of venues, except once. One Saturday evening a few years ago, he invited me along to the art museum where they were doing a reading. On that occasion, he only found one ticket, which he used for himself, leaving me to find a cab in downtown Dallas so I could get back to the monk. Those who have been downtown on a Saturday evening will know that usually there are only 4 or 5 people downtown on a Saturday night...and even fewer cabs.

I remembered this incident as Chris murmured, “Who’s selling tickets?” every five seconds as we walked around. In my entire life, I’ve never been able to solicit anything. In contrast, Chris does this almost as well as he rides the metro.

Around 10.45, a man acknowledged Chris, and ended up selling his own ticket for 100 pounds. I stood on the corner while they went down the street to do the deal.

Minutes later, Chris handed me a ticket and said, “One down.” Whoosh, or should I just say whoo.

At 11.15, as Chris continued to murmur, a man talking on a cell phone motioned for us to follow him. Down the street, and into a betting shop Chris and the man went. I hung out on the street and smoked a cigarette.

During the longest 10 minutes of my life, I wondered if Chris had been attacked inside the betting shop (the previous ticket transaction had taken all of 1 minute). I analysed the consequences of, in the event that Chris did NOT exit the betting shop, waiting until after the game ended before calling Lori to let her know that I’d lost Chris. Oosh.

Whoo-oosh.

Chris walked out of the shop, we walked a few steps, then he stopped, smiled, and said, “We’re in.”

My heart pounded as we went to the stadium entrance. What if the tickets were fake? What if the sweat from my hands rubs off the ink so they can’t see that it’s a ticket?
Chris went on through with ease, but the electronic bar code reader didn’t accept my ticket. Gulp.

I tried a second time, then the attendant inspected my ticket, then motioned for me to use another turnstile as he called another attendant over to report that the gate was malfunctioning. Suddenly, my gate opened, and I was standing next to Chris on the right side of the fence.

Our tickets were for the North Bank, the rowdiest section of the stadium. Chris and I basked in the sunshine an hour before kickoff, and just marvelled at the scene. The pitch is a beautiful green, and pretty enough without any players on it. Then, the goalkeeper came out to begin his warmup, gave us a little wave, then practiced stopping shots as the stadium continued to fill up.

As the start of the game drew nearer, Chris and I continued to sit together and watched the teams warm up, though we realized that eventually, Chris would have to go sit in the actual seat from his ticket stub; the stadium was truly going to be close to capacity.

The match began promptly at 12.45, and the entire North Bank of the stadium immediately stood up and burst into song. “Stand up if you hate Tottenham!” chanted everyone merrily, in the direction of the away fans’ corner, which was surrounded by stewards and police (for the fans’ protection...this is English soccer, yeah?).

Sure enough, the last two empty seats to my right were taken with the arrival of a couple, so Chris stepped out of the aisle to grab another seat, leaving me surrounded (safely) with energetic fans.

As first halves go, Tottenham played much better than Arsenal. There were a few frantic moments when I thought we’d let a goal in, but we held the line. As our seats were behind the goal and to the right, we had to stand up almost every time the ball came down to our end, which was frequent. Throughout the half, the fans sang songs, many directed at the players. Not complicated songs, mind you, but basically singing a player’s name over an over again. For example, “Jo-se An-ton-i-o” was heard from all sides of the pitch when Jose Reyes had possession of the ball. Many other songs weren’t quite a polite. “Who the fuck are ya?” was the question the Arsenal fans sang to the travelling supporters.

The seats themselves reminded me of the seats they used to have at the Inwood Theatre, before they replaced them with the cushy nice ones. These at Highbury weren’t uncomfortable, and certainly better than the bleacher seats I’ve had to sit on in other stadiums. Besides, when 10,000 people stand up at once, all the chairs clunk together at once, and I believe Chris commented that it sounded kind of like a herd of buffalo.

The first half ended scoreless, and as people went out for refreshments and bathroom breaks, I turned around and saw Chris standing a few rows behind me. He’d found a few seats together that were quite close to my original seat. Thus, we’d be able to watch the second half together.

I stepped out for a quick smoke, and ran into one of the Irish, who was delighted to discover that we’d gotten into the match, and furthermore, we’d paid less for our tickets than he had thought we might have to.

I appreciated a personal moment as I watched all of the fans rushing about trying to buy concessions, talk to their friends, go to the bathroom, and get back to their seats before the game resumed. What a cool day.

Chris and I compared our thoughts of the first half of the match. We weren’t playing well, and the second half didn’t start much better. Thierry Henry didn’t start the game, and neither did our midfielder Fabregas; the important Champs League match was going to be three days later, and those two would need a lot of their strength for that game. Meanwhile, Tottenham had all of their stars out, and were successfully taking the game to Arsenal.

Chris said, “shit!” about 1000 times during the second half, and the three little red haired boys sitting in front of us turned around and grinned almost each time, as did their father, though the father’s smile wasn’t quite as big.

Early in the second half, the crowd began chanting for the arrival of Henry, who could asily change the tide of the game for us. Sure enough, he came on in the 62nd minute, as did Fabregas. They had an immediate impact, but unfortunately, this impact affected both teams. Two Arsenal players collided in spectacular fashion (it couldn’t have been any more keystone cops like), and normally in cases like this, the other teams kicks the ball out of play, stopping the game to ensure that the players are okay. In this case, the Tottenham player played on, and, as the referee didn’t blow the whistle, proceeded to head on down the field, cross the ball into the box, where a bastard named Robbie Keane tapped the ball in for a Tottenham score. This little incident created quite a bit of controversy, and the normally cool, calm, collected Arsenal manager loudly complained to the assistant ref, and also had a few heated words for the coach of Tottenham.

The goal sort of silenced the crowd, but we were still cheering our team on. The North Bank began singing Tottenham were cheats, somewhat merrily, I might add. Once we hit the 80th minute, I began to think that today wouldn’t be our day. However, with 6 minutes left in the game, Henry collected a pass from upfield, then turned and scored a classic goal…the kind of goal we were hoping to see at Highbury. The stadium erupted in a fervor, and became even more excited when a Tottenham midfielder picked up a second yellow card and got sent of. For the remainder of the game, Arsenal threw everything forward in hopes of scoring a winner, but at full time, we settled for a draw.
Maybe not the barnburner, but certainly worth the price of admission. The atmosphere alone is just great…and as usual, I didn’t do the experience justice in my description. But, next time you have a few hundred pounds and happen to be in London between August and May, feel free to check a match out.

Chris and I exited the stadium with the rest of the crowd. The officals had asked that Tottenham fans exit the stadium in one direction, asking the Arsenal fans to exit in the opposite. The effort to maintain peace and order is pretty intense.

Out on the street, we wanted to let the crowds die down before trying to get back on the tube. We tried to check out the stadium shop, which was again closed. Then, we decided to walk over to the new stadium, where we found a fifty something gentleman snapping pictures with a disposable camera. “I’ve been coming for 50 years,” he said to no one in particular. Then, sort of turning to whoever happened to be standing in the general area, he motioned to the glass picture windows that covered half the side of the new stadium and asked, “Fancy a job as a window washer, boys?”

Something told me that perhaps he’d been saying those two lines for the past few months each week after an Arsenal match. No matter, he was a very nice man, and ultimately directed us back to the same tube stop to get back into central London.

Beer sales are prohibited in English football, with some random exceptions. This was a particular day where Highbury did offer Budweiser at the concession stands, but we elected to skip the brews until post match.

On Chris’ suggestion, off to Earl´s Court we went via the tube. It was across town, and took a few minutes, so we were ready for pints as soon as we got off the subway. Fortunately, Chris knew the place we were going, and within minutes, we were drinking his coveted John Smith Ale. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was now 4pm. The pub’s kitchen would reopen around 5, so I, like I’ve been doing for years, put pints before food, and hoped that I wouldn’t be too incredibly drunk by 6pm.

As we sat at our table and talked about the game, I looked over and saw a little poster offering a free t-shirt when you order 8 pints of John Smith Ale. Great. Like we needed an excuse to order 8 pints of beer anyway. We settled in for what would probably be an outing where we’d eat twice in the same establishment, but were entertained by the FA cup match between Liverpool and Chelsea.

Chris got to talk to Lori during all of this, and we also had a couple of little chats with an Englishman who had been at the Arsenal match himself. He’s a season ticket holder, and told us a few funny stories about seeing the new stadium, other matches, and his overall opinion of the afternoon’s match. He told us several stories about guys who were drinking 12 pints of beer a day, 5 or 6 days a week. He did this with a glass of red wine in his hand; people are consuming a bit less beer in England these days, but only a bit. I had no beef about the red wine…look where I live.

My appetite returned, so I decided to order the ultimate hamburger, which had beef, sausage, bacon, egg, mushroom, and cheese on it. It was a bit difficult to manage, but I was facing the corner (instead of the rest of the bar), so only Chris really had to put up with the poor manners. “Kind of hard to control, eh?” he casually asked while using his knife and fork.

Sometime between 8 and 9, we needed some fresh air, so staggered out onto the road and walked around. We were actually in Chelsea and Fullham areas, which helps one to sober up rather quickly. It’s not that I ever feared that we’d be thumped because we were wearing Arsenal jerseys in the wrong part of town, but there was no real need to try and test that, either.

As the sun finally went down, we found ourselves entering Hammersmith, West London. Clash country. But, outside of a little glance about, I knew I wanted to leave the trip to West London for another weekend. This weekend was all about North London and Arsenal.

We headed back to our Angel stop, had a quick change in the hotel, then walked around Islington. By this time, it was close to 10pm, and everyone was stepping out for the night. We walked down Upper Street, which was full of bars, restaurants, pubs, shops, and people. Since we weren’t in any particular hurry, and still pretty loaded on pints (Chris got the t-shirt, by the way), the walk would do us good.

25 minutes later we arrived at Higbury & Islington tube station, which is the other tube stop that gets you to the stadium ground. It was nice to put the whole area into geographic context. Yes, I’m aware that I could have just read a map, but after looking at tube maps all weekend, everything appears to be within walking distance. I don’t consider 25 minutes to be excessive, but maybe I wouldn’t want to do it everyday, you know?

Chris opted to find a little Chinese restaurant for dinner, and I quickly agreed. Every Asian restaurant that I’ve been in has tended to be super quiet. This place was booming, full of tables of chatty customers. No one was being particularly obnoxious (except for a couple of drunk guys in the corner), everyone was just enjoying the Saturday night. Next time I eat Chinese in Texas, I’m going to make an effort to be more noisy.

We called it a night around 12.30 or so, and, after a very full day, planned to sleep late on Sunday.

Sure enough, it was 10.30 or so before we even opened our eyes Sunday morning. We looked outside to see rain, something we hadn’t seen thus far in the weekend. Chris had to book a hotel for Sunday night, and decided to stay on where we were. I had to be at the airport by midafternoon to catch my flight back to Valencia.

We broke one of my rules and had a few coffees in a Starbucks down the street, as there was no other café open. This place was two story, and we found a couple of comfy chairs and just enjoyed the lazy morning. I saw a cute girl with a tattoo of little animal footprints going up the small of her back, which goes down in my book as really cool.

Around 2, it was time for me to leave, so I called a cab, and Chris waited with me out on the front stoop of the hotel A quick, expensive visit to London, to Arsenal…there was no better way to spend a weekend. We said our goodbyes, I got on in the cab, and headed for Liverpool Street Station, and caught the train back to Stanstead.

At Stanstead, I had to stand in line for about an hour, only to discover that I had to pay an extra fee for failing to tell them I wanted to check my bag. This required me to get out of line, go stand in another line (that was very short, thank goodness), pay 5 pounds, then return to the original desk for my boarding card. I wasn’t too pleased, but what could I do.

Once I had my boarding card, I stepped outside for a couple of powersmokes, and ended up seeing a couple that had been outside of Highbury on Friday night watching the players arrive. I don’t know if they saw the game or not, because I didn’t actually talk to them. My weekend was wrapping up, and I didn’t feel too chatty.

Due to me being a bit of an idiot, I queued in the wrong line to board the airplane (Ryan Air does sort of a cattle car approach, like Southwest), and as a result, got a bit of lip from the flight attendant and got to stand at the very back of the line. I actually was second to last onto the airplane. This meant I got a crap seat, and this didn’t help my mood. I sat in silence for the entire flight back to Valencia.

We touched down around 9pm, and, being on the very back row of the aircraft, I got to get off the plane last. The positive to this, of course, is that I hardly had to wait for my bag, which was toodling down the carrousel when I arrived at baggage claim. I grabbed my gear, had a quick smoke, then hailed a taxi for Meliana, where I returned to an empty house, Lynne, Fran, Daniel, mom and Dad were on a trip of their own, and would return on Monday.

I enjoyed a quiet Monday thinking about my fun expensive weekend. Sometimes, you have to just throw caution into the wind and blow budget. I enjoyed it so much, I might even have to do it again, though I’ve already got to fly back to the states in August, which is going to cost a ton. (Note to self: one of the goals for the rest of 2006 is to make more money. Okay, some money.)

Monday was San Vicente Day, another regional holiday. I prepared my classes for the rest of the week, then met an intercambio friend at Finnegan’s for a few pints.

Tuesday, April 25, was the away leg of Arsenal-Villareal in the Champs League semi final. Villareal is pretty close to Valencia, so Arsenal fans were all over the place. I was wearing my kit, too, though experienced a few dodgy moments where people gave me dirty looks in the metro and city center.

After a few weeks of break from teaching, I couldn’t afford to try and reschedule a class with a student, so I missed the first half of the match. But, at 9.30pm when my class let out, I sprinted down to the street to Finnegan’s to join the crowd of Villareal and Arsenal fans. The match was horrible actually. Arsenal played worse than they did against Tottenham. That said, Villareal weren’t getting through Arsenals defense. I was watching the game by myself, due to the crowd in the bar. I could see my Arsenal mates (ok, there are really only two of them), but there was no room.

I saw the game heading towards a draw, which would enable Arsenal to go on through to the final…under the aggregate rule. Then, in the 90th minute, the referee ruled a foul to be a penalty…against Arsenal. Oh my god.

My teams have crashed out of so many games in penalties, and it kills me very time. (I was in a bar in Boston back in 1998 watching England lose to Argentina on penalties…the barman actually asked me not to throw anything or wreck the place)
No, I don’t get violent, I just get shattered.

So, I kept one eye closed and the other on the television screen, then found myself screaming…..Lehmann, my little buddy in the Mercedes hatchback had guessed correctly, stopped the shot, and the final whistle was moments away.

Full time. Arsenal goes through to the Champs League final. Though they didn’t deserve to win the match, they deserve to be in the final (they played much better and got the result in the first match).

Immediately after the game, the Villareal fans exited in sadness. I grabbed another beer, then met up with my friends for a bit of celebration. I happened to meet some girl from Iowa who had been living in Ireland for the past year; she was taking a whirlwind trip through Europe before heading home. I wished her luck, indicating that I was just beginning my time in Europe.

I felt kind of bad for the taxi driver who drove me home Tuesday night. He was listening to the match recap on the radio, and was in tears for the entire ride. I offered a few words of consolation as I paid my fare, and also told him that I’d been in his shoes several times myself.

Wednesday, I woke up still feeling very full of Arsenal, my weekend joy had stretched into midweek.

I celebrated my good feeling by going to pick up my official ID card. I’m now an official resident of Spain. Fucking cool.

One of my intercambios invited me to the movies later that night, so I tagged along with a few women (who all live in Meliana) and we saw “Eres muy guapo,” a French film that was dubbed into Spanish. It was my first movie going experience in Spain (tick it off the list of goals), and amazingly enough, I followed most of the diaglog. Yes, Moe, it was typical French plot…older man meets younger beautiful woman, and once again, I loved it.

So here it is Friday morning, 11am, and I’m trying to wrap this up and get to the gym. I have found that I may have just picked up a couple of new classes, as word of mouth is spreading that sometimes Bryan gives away copies of his music to his students.

Right. Keep the faith and all that. I’ve got to, since Arsenal vs Barcelona is two weeks away.

bryan

Una pesadilla con un final feliz

Well, no sooner had I put my cap back on my pen a couple of Wednesday afternoons ago, feeling very clever, I suddenly found myself in a place called “hmmm, this sucks.”

It basically started like this: Fallas had just ended, and though I’d lived through a couple of questionable days at the beginning of the week, by Wednesday I felt pretty darn good, and concluded that a few bad days in the bathroom was simply a result of something I’d eaten over the previous weekend (on top of the glasses of wine, pints of beers, and chupitos).

As I excused myself for a second time during my class that Wednesday evening, I thought to myself, “Perhaps 4 Guinness and a fry up with double egg and sausage wasn’t such a good idea.”

As I got up for the third time later that night (or should I say early Thursday), I began to think that something was more than just slightly amis. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how can this moron not tell when he’s ill? Well, let’s consider the facts. I’ve managed to survive the past ten years or so on a diet heavy in pints and bar food; I once ate the German plate seven nights in a row at the Old Monk, changing only the flavor of the accompanying beer for a bit of variety. I’ve always known that I had “rotten insides” (a term that a fellow junkie and I coined to describe our eating habits), but I’ve tended to console myself with the fact that at least I wasn’t a vegetarian, too.

So, Thursday I didn’t feel so hot, and elected to skip the daily trip to the gym. I somehow roused myself to get to class, but felt a bit guilty when I had to excuse myself several times, leaving my students with the instruction to practice speaking aloud the phrase, “Bryan is in the toilet but he’s OK.”

I’ve always loved poop stories, and was finding the whole personal experience pretty humorous, all things considered. Around my fourth or fifth trip downstairs that night, however, it finally occurred to me that I might be on my way to a bad dehydration trip.

I consulted my sister (whose bedroom is right next to the guest bathroom…how could she not know that something was up?) on the matter, which meant that additional folks were consulted: family, friends, neighbors. Normally, I would have preferred to have kept this little adventure a bit more low key, but as the mystery continued, I was starting to get a bit nervous, particularly about the possibility of dehydration. Around 5am on Friday morning, my sister met me at the edge of the hallway as I was returning from yet another trip to the john, and indicated that we’d go see the doctor later that afternoon after she finished work. Meanwhile, I’d plan to take it easy and drink Gatorade for the day.

As my nephew went off to school Friday morning, he remarked that once, he, too, had had bad kaka. I actually appreciated the commiseration.

Lynne and I metroed off to the hospital that afternoon, and a nice lady at the reception desk entered my name in the computer. My parents had come here for treatment once or twice before themselves, so this lady knows the whole Barlow family.

The visit with the doctor went pretty quick. Lynne stepped in to assist with the translations, though whether in Spanish or English, the shits still sounds bad. The medical assistants took a blood sample, then told us to come back in a while for the results and diagnosis. Lynne and I had a coffee (I had water) and sat in a park across the street for a bit.

Finally, around 8 or so, the doctor called me back in to the office with the news: I had gastroenteritis…bad kaka, if you will. I was to take some stuff called Sueroral, which is basically a super powerful Gatorade with a couple of extra bits (to repair my insides)for the next few days. Additionally, I would need to follow a pretty limited diet for the next week. All in all, considering the circumstances, I was in pretty good health.

Greatly relieved, I left the hospital with Lynne, popped (dang, i almost wrote pooped)in the pharmacy to buy the meds, then headed to the metro. Our parents were supposed to call us that evening, and we were a bit concerned that we’d miss their call. As for me, I wasn’t so concerned with missing their call as I was with Fran inadvertently giving them the message that I was in hospital seeing a doctor. I had been hoping to keep the news of this whole bad kaka thing quietly contained in Meliana and half of Alboraya…no need to pass the word on to the states.

Alas, there was a problem on the metro which was causing lengthy delays, so what was meant to be a quick visit to the doctor had now turned into a half day trip. As we waited on the metro platform, I wondered if there’d be a safe haven or two in the vicinity. Eventually, a train came, packed to capacity, but Lynne and I squeezed on and returned to Meliana. (Whew! That was awesome!)

We found out later the cause of the delay: there had been a suicide on our line, basically near our stop. Rather grim news. I thought darkly to myself how unfortunate that someone had a shittier week than me.

Hats off to Sueroral, because Saturday I felt remarkably better, and even better still on Sunday. I was still avoiding milk products (except for coffees) but beyond that, pretty much eating anything I felt like.

Monday, I was back in form, and back in the gym. The escapade was behind me, and I was most thankful; it was going to be a busy week.

Fran was out of town on a business trip, and with the exception of Wednesday, Lynne had choir practice every night in preparation for her choir concert at the weekend. This meant that I would need to hang out around the house at night with Daniel.

Fortunately for me, Arsenal played Juventus on TV that Tuesday evening, so I shredded napkins in the living room throughout the game until the final whistle. Arsenal 2, Juve 0. “My team is on fire, and I don’t have bad kaka!” I said to myself while enjoying a post match drink on the terrace.

Pause here while I talk about the terrace…currently it’s my front stoop, as my room is an add-on to the terrace itself. Basically, I can open up the entire wall of my room and look out over the town, and see the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. Of course, I always have a morning coffee up there, but also tend to spend a lot of time out there at night just reflecting, enjoying a smoke, and marvelling at the moon. In the book Fountainhead, a wealthy character had a penthouse apartment in New York, and on the very top had a room built entirely of glass, allowing for a view of the entire city. Take away NYC, lower the penthouse to about five stories, and remove the millionare, and you now understand how cool my little place is. I’m very fortunate, and extremely grateful that Lynne and Fran are letting me be a guest here. Like my brother in law, I easily consider it my favorite room in a really cool apartment.

As the week continued, I felt better and better, especially after the victory by Arsenal. I felt a bit selfish for being slightly irked when a student had to cancel class; her father in law was the one who was killed by the metro at the end of the previous week. But, the more time I spend in Spain, I realize how small the world can be. The doctor that treated me has a daughter who attends class at Casa Americana where I work, in fact she lives right around the corner from the school. Even in a region of several million people, you can almost always find a connection with someone.

This point held true on Wednesday night, when I took my student to a nearby plaza for class…call it a field trip if you want. Beers were optional, so I elected in favor of the hops. After our class, he invited me to join him as he went to meet some other folks for a few drinks. Thus, I met Mercedes and Laura, two girls who work in an office near city centre. One of them had taught in a high school in the states a few years before, apparently the same high school where Dangerous Minds was filmed.

After the unpleasant time I’d had the previous week, I was glad to have an evening out. The four of us had a few pints in Finnegan’s, and though they made fun of my Spanish a bit, at least they were nice about it.

I picked up a new student at the end of the week – a fifteen year old girl who needed some tutoring. Her house is close to the Calatrava complex, and I got to familiarize myself with another part of the city on the commute, and even got to do one of those mad dashes through the metro station to catch my transfer.

Teaching a teenager was a new experience (er, teaching period is a new experience, eh?) but she and I connected over music (of course). Yet another person who likes SKA, groovy. Like me, her music tastes are diverse, but she lent me a cd of a band called Mago de Oz, which is a bit more metal than I like, but worth the listen. I’ll return the favor this week with a cd or two of my own.

Friday evening I arrived home, said a quick hello to Fran, who had just arrived back from his business trip, then Lynne and I went to her choir practice, the last one before Saturday night’s concert.

Funny, you might picture a choir rehearsal as maybe a two hour deal. In this case, we met a few folks for tapas at 9. By 10, we were at the concert hall. Two hours later, rehearsal ended, and a few of us went off for a post practice refreshment at an horchateria. After a few weeks in Spain, though, I’m used to it. After all, a trip to the doctors can take 5 hours, so why not a choir rehearsal?

Saturday was going to be a long day. The concert was in Alboraya, where Fran’s mom lives. We tend to eat lunch at her house most Saturdays around 2.30. Consider a couple of hours for lunch, and then it’s almost 5, when Lynne needed to be at the music hall for a little warmup. As Lynne changed clothes for the concert, I hoofed it to the car in search of her hair gel, which somehow was missing from her gear and hopefully still in the trunk of the car. I was unsuccessful, but returned to Concha’s to discover that Lynne had found it in her own gear…just a different bag. She and I headed off to the music hall, leaving Fran, Daniel and Concha to join us at 7 for the concert.

This concert was in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Alboraya’s choir…quite the special occasion. Three other choirs performed in addition to Alboraya, each led by a former director of the Alboraya choir. The first was a youth choir, who were fantastic. They sang a Mecano song, and a couple of other numbers in English. The other two choirs were equally talented. The crowd was most appreciative, and applauded with great ovation after every number.

Lynne’s choir was the main event, but weren’t going to sing until the second half of the show. Unfortunately, my nephew wasn’t quite up to it, so was a bit restless from the get go. It didn’t help matters when one of his little buddies arrived- they created quite a distraction together. Neither one calmed down when Lynne’s choir hit the stage. In fact, the choir had just started to sing their second or third song when Daniel began to exclaim, “Mamá, Mamá!” which earned him a trip outside to the foyer with his father. They remained out there for the duration of the concert, leaving Concha and I to represent the family in attendance. Lynne’s group did well, and it’s always a proud moment for me to see her up on stage. Emotional applause exploded after every song, and you couldn’t help but get caught up in the spirit. Quite the nice evening.

There was a reception immediately following the concert in the bar next door, and I had a few beers over in a corner with Andres and Acier, until I decided to venture into the mass of singers to pay a few compliments. I suddenly found myself surrounded by many choir members who were good naturedly pressuring me to join the choir. The director took it upon himself to invite me, as well, and as I looked around for some support of a sister (who had suddenly, mysteriously disappeared) I realized that I was probably going to have to suck it up and start showing up at rehearsals. I’d like to mention that this decision has nothing to do with the cute doctora that several choir members are trying to set me up with. There’s a concert at the Palau de la Música in May, and participating in that would be on the same level as singing in the Meyerson in Dallas. Not a bad gig if you can swing it.

At any rate, after making some feeble statement about coming to the next practice, I eventually escaped the pressure (parting words from the doctora, “see you Tuesday!”) and went with Lynne, Maribel, Andres, Roberto, and Acier to have a late evening snack. I had a chance to watch Real Madrid – Barcelona at the bar, and we finally got home around 2 or so, 12 hours after leaving house earlier in the day.

Sunday was spent catching up on rest, and Monday I hammered this little story out at Finnegan’s. Now, it’s Tuesday morning, and I’m preparing for the arrival of my parents, who get here later this week. I’ve got a feeling that things will stay pretty busy for the next few weeks. No problem by me.

Keep the faith
Bryan
04/04/06