David, Debbie, and my last day in Barcelona coincided with a pretty monumental event, the Euro Cup finial. It was especially monumental in that the two teams were Spain and Germany and Spain hasn’t won a title in over 44 years.

Now it’s import to note (since I made this mistake) that the Euro Cup is NOT the World Cup. The World Cup is a much bigger event and I believe is only every four years. It’s the Grand Prix of Football, or maybe I’m mixing my sports metaphors. The point is to say that even though it wasn’t the World Cup there was still a lot of emotion, passion, nationalism, and bragging rights affixed to this game.

The week before I had been in Dublin with friends watching the preliminaries with excitement in the air as Spain and Italy faced off. It was quite a spectacle. In fact the TV feed would literately be interfered with by the high pitched screams, groans, and cheers, of the Melissa, Monica, Valentina, and Erika (the representatives of the opposing countries). Sam and I, in what had become typical mischievousness, were trying to ’stir up the pot’ between the four, pitting the two Italians against the two Spaniards, and encouraging all manner of insults and trash talking. Much in the way of: “Did you hear what she just said? Are you going to take that?” and so forth.

But that was just the semi-finials, now we were IN Spain watching the match that mattered most, the anticipation building by the second.

We opted to go with our newly acquired (from the train then beach) friends from the previous day.  And so from Sunday meeting we set off to find the best place to view it. Everyone had a theory about which pub “wouldn’t be packed” but everyone was wrong. The streets were empty, the pubs filled, THIS wasn’t an average game. So we jammed in like the rest of the cattle with little-to-no breathing room, and cheered with the rest of them, basking in the iconic experience.

Eventually more and more people packed into the pub to the point where it just became crazy so we walked to a nearby quieter restaurant and enjoyed an much more chilled out second half. That’s not to say that the emotion was gone, because I think all of our (or at very least David’s and my) voices were nearly gone from yelling at the referees, cheering, booing, and celebrating as the final seconds on the clock dissolved revealing Spain as victor.

The streets went wild. Happiness prevailed. And even I felt lifted up, adrenaline pumping freely.

But that was nothing compared to the next day.

For you see, that very night we had over-night bus tickets to Madrid. So the next day while in Madrid we get the news that the team is coming to the city center of Madrid in a big parade.

Obviously we had to see it. So we joined the nearly 4 Million cheering fans in the city square for an awesome display of public celebration. Confetti, jet’s flying overhead spewing out the countries colors, live bands, fireworks, fire trucks playfully hosing people with water, and more. It was the best. David and I somehow managed to worm our way to a great location and as we waited for the team’s bus to come through we sang Spanish songs and chants from the bottom of our hearts. Granted we had no idea what we were singing, but we shouted it at the top of our lungs just like the millions around us.

Eventually the bus did come and we were only about 20 feet away from the team who were dancing, blowing kisses, and holding the cup over their heads with pride.

It was exhilarating and I felt really proud that I, as an older brother, had shared this with my brother. “THIS” I told him “is something you should put on that wall of yours!”