Friday August 2nd

Today we went to Camp Nou!  For those of you who don't know, this is the stadium for FC Barcelona!  Yes, you can all be extremely jealous right now, and it was awesome!  When I was planning on coming to Barcelona, this was the one thing I really wanted to do, but I soon found that the season ends in May.  I had resigned myself to missing out on this opportunity, but lo and behold, the 2013-2014 season starts in August and the home opener was today against Santos FC.  We sat at the very top of the stadium and got there an hour early to beat the crowd and make sure we could enjoy the atmosphere, including all the opening ceremony stuff.  What we couldn't believe was the sheer size of the stadium: Camp Nou seats just shy of 100,000 people, and the seats will literally vibrate when every starts yelling, singing or cheering.  It was great seeing all the tradition too, from the singing of the club song, to people getting out of their seats and bowing down to Messi.  Yes, we did see Messi in real life!  We also got to see Neymar Jr. in his first ever home appearance as a Barca player, and we got to see them on the field at the same time!! (I may have been slightly freaking out).  Regardless, it was an awesome night and we are sooooooo glad we went!!