The experience of watching the game was one that is very difficult to put on paper. Spain was to take on the Netherlands, a very good team with amazing players like Rubben and with experience in winning the world cup before. I honestly wasn't completely confident that Spain would win. The people here, however, had a completely different mentality. The commercials on the TV all said famous logos like "Podemos!" (meaning, "we can!") and "A por ellos!" (meaning, "let's go for it!"). Everyone here was talking about the octopus in Germany called Paul who became famous for correctly "predicting" all of Germany's matches and who had now "predicted" Spain was to win the final. My host brothers's friends were joking around that if Paul's prediction was incorrect, they were going to fly to Germany and eat it with chips.
Cesar told me over the phone that he saw it with his host brother and some friends in the Puerto de Valencia where they put a huge projector screen for thousands of people to come and see the game. He said it was crazy.
I saw the game with my host family and their friends at a neighbor's house where they put the TV outside for us to pull up a chair and watch. It was a lot of fun to watch. Every time Spain would come close to scoring, everyone would get on their feet and go crazy, including myself. There was a point in the game when they were asking me if I was sure I wasn't Spanish.
The game went to over-time and in the 113th minute, Andrés Iniesta scored the deciding goal that gave Spain its first ever championship. With all the emotion of the victory, I couldn't help myself and started crying of happiness.
To celebrate, we all jumped in the pool with all our clothes on and stayed up all night eating and glorifying the victory. I don't think I'll ever forget that day.
Tomorrow I made plans to hang out with Ramon and Cesar at Ramon's host family's place.
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