Barca vs. Valencia

Me at FC Barcelona's Camp Nou

We weren’t planning on staying 4 days in Barcelona, but we got tickets for the FC Barcelona vs. Valencia soccer game at Camp Nou stadium, and that was too good to pass up for a couple of soccer nuts. We used most of the day as a rest day, with Elena hitting more shopping, and me picking up the game tickets and confirming our car rental for the rest of the trip.

We had purchased our tickets online, which complicated our planning back home because La Liga teams don't settle on the times and dates of their games until couple weeks before the game. The original game time was 9 pm(!) on a Sunday night. Andreu explained to me that 9 pm is prime time in Spain, and TV money dictates the game times, even pushing games back to 10 pm sometimes. Apparently people don't need to get up early for work in Barcelona.

Luckily, our game was switched to 7 pm, and when game time finally arrived, we were rewarded by Barca’s high-priced stars, young and old. Within 15 minutes, the maligned Barca had shredded their hapless rivals for 3 goals. By the time the sun set over Camp Nou in the waning minutes of the game, Barca was up 6-0, with a dominant performance from Lionel Messi and 2 goals each from ringer Thierry Henry and teen phenom Bojan Krkic. Ronaldinho was nowhere to be found and wasn't missed.

The sun sets over Camp Nou as Barca sparkles, 6-0

We had a traditionally Spanish late dinner at Gente de Pasta, which continued our long line of moderately expensive yet mediocre meals in Spain. Really, the lesson we learned is that with the horrific exchange rate and standard of living in Spain, if you don’t splurge on dinner, you might as well go cheap, because anything in the middle is equally bad. We spent a lot of the rest of the trip eating better and cheaper foods at bakeries.