Last weekend I was in Asturias with my friend, Kate, who is doing the same program as me. We had no plan for this trip, but among many fun activities (I’ll write another post on the whole trip) we found ourselves on quite an adventure. We discovered that the World Cup trophy was in Asturias for the week, so we decided that finding the trophy, aka the Holy Grail, would be the quest for the weekend.
The trophy was last seen in Avilés, which was about a 30 minute bus ride away from Oviedo, the town we were staying in. So, on Saturday morning, we took the short trip. To our sad discovery, the trophy was no longer there. We decided to grab a coffee and some breakfast and walk around the town, since we didn’t have anything else to do. We ended up in a restaurant with a waiter from Ohio! We told him about our quest, and to our good fortune, he found an article in the local paper with a schedule of the trophy’s locations for the week.
Our last chance was to wake up early on Sunday and take another bus to the trophy’s morning location. The buses are something I’m still trying to figure out, and we had a little bump in the road of our quest that morning. I didn’t realize that the bus was going to Avilés, the town we were at the day before, and the town with the trophy, Cancienes, was a stop on the way to Avilés. Well, we missed the stop and had to visit the bus station in Avilés one more time before we backtracked to the trophy. We were smarter the second time and asked the bus driver to tell us which stop to get off for Cancienes.
We finally got to the town and had a small walk to the location of the trophy. We were worried about a line, because the pictures from the newspaper showed a huge line where people were waiting for almost 2 hours just to get a few seconds with the trophy. Again to our luck, we arrived and were within the first 10 people! The van arrived and we watched them unload the trophy. They let us in about 20 minutes before the scheduled time, and we had plenty of opportunities to take multiple photos.
It was so cool to have the opportunity to see the trophy and be a part of the culture that has so much pride for their country and such passion for this sport that I love! I’m able to watch so much more fútbol since I’m in the right time zone to catch the games when I’m not working. I’ll always be a fan of Real Madrid and the Spanish national team. This is where my love for the game started, back in 2002 when I studied abroad here, and I hope to be able to watch a few live matches while I’m here!
[nggallery id=5]
awesome
also…did you drink the cider?!
Yep, sure did! I have a picture of the guy pouring it…next post!
that is sweet!! however, i thought the case was a pimp LV chest???!!!
True, it could be a replica, or maybe the LV case was within the silver case? IDK…still very cool!
Haha, this is so funny! You and your soccer. Love it! Can´t wait to see what other adventures you two had last weekend.
I see the games on TV, but they start so late! How do the guys play so well with a game that starts at midnight?! Do you actually stay up and watch them?
BTW, Villa es muy guapo! ;)
Yes, it was a really fun weekend! I do stay up to watch most of the matches. It’s not that late, and totally worth it! I’d normally be trying to watch highlights at work, this is much better!
Sounds like you had fun and were able to get a picture of the Holy Grail! Can’t wait to see the next posts from your weekend in Barcelona. We are back in the NW. Had fun with the family. Talk to you soon. Why did the cup go to that town? Because of the player you mentioned? Is it touring the country?
Sorry, it took me forever to reply. The cup was in this town because the awards were going on too, and the futbol team was receiving an award, so I think they figured there would be a lot of people who would want to view the trophy. It’ll be touring around Spain throughout the year.