Alicante, Spain

Although it has only been a little over a week since our last post, these past few days have been totally action packed, with several hundred miles of travel, soccer games, climbing, sweet glasses of Sangria and crazy fun with American and British expats.

Rome
The day before we left Italy, we happened to catch a live AS Roma v. Atalanta soccer game. It was wild, to say the least. The AS Roma fans turned up in droves, gathering outside the stadium before the game, downing cheap beers. As we walked up to the stadium, we could hear them chanting and getting all riled up. As soon as the players took the field, the stadium began to look like a war zone. Flares were going off everywhere, huge BOOM sounds of firecrackers rang through the stadium, and the Roma fans shouted their fight song at the top of their lungs.

There had already been a large police presence at the stadium before the start of the game, but oddly enough, Atalanta scored the first goal, and the stadium went crazy. The Atalanta fans had been sheltered in a small part of the bleachers, but they broke through the lines and began fighting with other fans. For a moment, I was afraid someone would get hurt. But as the smoke cleared, we could see that the riot police had been brought in- probably a few hundred of them- and they had their weapons ready. The rest of the game passed without too much incident, but needless to say, it was quite an experience!

Barcelona, Spain
We were able to get a direct overnight train from Roma to Barcelona, and Spain greeted us with lovely bright sunshine. We only had a couple of days in Barcelona, and unfortunately most of the museums were closed. But we were able to go on a couple of walking tours and see the interesting architecture, eat some great food, and make a mental note to come back another time and see much more.
The first day we were there, the Barcelona soccer team had a big game against Bayern Wader, and we saw tons of their fans in the streets. We heard later that there were over 100,000 people at the game. We watched the game on TV, and saw a Manchester United game the following night in a packed Irish bar. It seems strange, but once you leave the US, you realize how the rest of the world truly seems to revolve around soccer, and actually, how fun it is to watch.

Costa Blanca, Spain
As it often seems on our journey, getting to rock climbing destinations is a bit difficult, but once there, the climbing is awesome. On the way to our choice of accommodation, challenges included only being able to hire a manual transmission car, getting lost in the hills as darkness descended, and attempting to find a place to stay in Benidorm (ugh!) just as our tempers (and the clutch) were reaching breaking point. Fortunately, the next morning we were well rested, Chris´s clutch control was a little better, the sun was shining, and we found our place to stay. The Orange House in Finestrat is a climber´s hangout - we stayed in a caravan (RV) in the garden - full of random climbers, dogs and cats. Although only a 10 minute drive from Benidorm, Finestrat is a beautiful little town nestled into the hills underneath some huge mountain crags. After a good night´s sleep, we headed out for the climbing. Costa Blanca is generally described as a perfect wintertime climbing destination, and we would certainly agree with that. There are dozens of limestone crags here, all well-bolted, easy to get to, and in wonderful surroundings - often overlooking the sea or valleys of olive trees. Sadly, we only had time for two days of climbing, but hopefully we can come back here in the future and climb a little more...


Our transport in Costa Blanca. The clutch is just out of the shot on the right.



















Relaxing with a spot of mint tea in Morocco...