Jet laaaaag

Ugh. Oh man feeling a bit rough. Is it 9pm or 3pm?? I have no clue. Back from two weeks across the pond working on the man tan and seeing the sights. Tried to squeeze in as much football as possible but had a tough time making that a priority when I was short on time and spent over a week with people who don't really care for the sport. But regardless saw some good stuff. It was cool seeing games and coverage on TV all the time, specifically Bundesliga and Eredivisie. The latter I think would be a sweet league to follow as there is some cool teams, specifically there was alot of VVV highlights with their captain Keisuke Honda who looked pretty damn good. Anyways, let's get to the football specific roll of film. The trip went a little something like this - Barca-Valencia-Sete-Vevey-Berlin-Amsterdam. And here are the highlights:

Started the trip off in a mad dash because I was doing too much bloggin/podcastin/websitin when I should have been packin! So I jump in the cab to rush off to the airport. I live right by BMO field so the guy floors it outta my neighborhood, is flying through traffic, onto the highway ... EAST. I'm just sitting there waiting until this moron realizes that Pearson is not located downtown Toronto. Finally he says "Ummm. Hmmm. I think we are going the wrong way. We might need to turn around." REALLY? YOU THINK? MIGHT? HOW ABOUT TURNING THAT METER OFF PAUL TRACY CUZ I'M NOT PAYING TO SIT IN TRAFFIC DOWNTOWN. So after that I finally arrived to the airport, rushed to the nearest bar and snapped this picture off that pretty much summarizes Team Canada. Tough loss guys.


Flew into Barca here and wanted to find where Espanyol is playing this season but for real I think you really won't find much in this city unless you know where to go because it's 100% Barcelona FC. After getting settled in, went up to Camp Nou but this time (I've been once before) decided to take the stadium/museum tour.


First thing you do is watch this super cheesy 3-D movie that left me thinking man this is going to be the most ghetto tour ever, but it actually wasn't that bad.


No grass on the pitch yet but pretty impressive inside. I am such a loser that I was here before when a game was going on (Getafe, so give me a break) and didn't go.



Maybe MLSE should take a good hard look at this.


The museum has cool historical memorabilia of posters, uniforms, membership cards and whatnot.


The Treble!


This was a bit of a sight - seeing tons of people just standing around the outside fence watching players board the bus to training.



So after that I headed down to Valencia. I unfortunately only had one day and could not get to the Mestalla BUT, I thought to myself, I can definitely get down with a Valencia kit or shirt, their crest is pretty badass. Until I saw THIS:


WTF! Have some dignity! UNIBET? Ok, maybe not the name but that is the ugliest logo ever and those shirts look brutal. I couldn't get out of that team store fast enough. So instead my hard earned money was spent at the bull ring. I did not go in because it had already started but it was super loud and I bought a sweet t-shirt on the street of a bull chucking a matador out of the ring! GO VEGETARIAN!!


So after a few more days around that area of Spain I drove up to Berlin, which took about three days. Stopped in Switzerland and had to practice my Italian.


Continued north and on the way saw ... HOFFENHEIM!


AND THIS. This picture does not do it justice, trust me it was a monstrosity.


My battery died in Berlin and had to wait a day to buy an adaptor. Rolled into Amsterdam but could not get to the stadium. Instead just found a few things here and there and watched football on TV late at night.




Good times, sucks to be back in a way but stoked to get to work on RedNation starting tonight with the TFC game. Missed alot of action over the last two weeks. My only regret was missing Liverpool play Espanyol in Barcelona, I seriously should have looked at the schedule and flown out of there. Another trip, another bungled football experience. Oh well, it's good to be home and being able to see TFC!