Glory Supporter

It's Friday! Those of you who read this blog regularly know what this means: it is China day! So it was off to the Chinese restaurant once again! By now the man knows us and I know the word for toilet in Chinese (thao che, or something similar..this is Chinese with a Spanish accent!)

Anyway, you might have noticed that I didn't place any pictures on the blog this week, and you might have been rather disappointed with this lack of artistic expression . I apologize. But it all has to do with my new passion in life: Atletico Madrid.

My good Erasmus friend Eduardo made himself very popular by offering me a free ticket for the match against Real Sociedad last Saturday. I had been waiting for this for four weeks. No, I had been waiting for this moment all my life. Estadio Vicente Calderon is literally a coins throw away (this is what you do to the opposition’s goalkeeper) from our flat the 'Pyramid' and the attraction towards this great football club is immense.

I have to admit to one thing though.

In my life I have been a passionate supporter of the following football clubs: Feyenoord (my best friend at school supported the club and so did I), Werder Bremen (beginning of the 90's a Kiwi played for this club and I was in my retro NZ period), Ajax (I thought Portuguese football player Dani was very attractive), Arsenal (I was a big fan of Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright - I even have a football shirt to prove this), Manchester United (my dad 'supports' the club because his colleague 'supports' the club, and so did I), ADO Den Haag (they were doing well in the first division so I supported them), Barcelona (needs no explanation), PSV (they were doing well in the league so I supported them), Celta de Vigo (this is the Galician club of Carmen's sister boyfriend - and good man - Alberto, I went to a match and passionately supported them) and most recently Tottenham Hotspurs (Martin Jol is coach)

But now I have finally found my new footballing love: El Atletí. After seeing the match I couldn’t think of anything else but Atletí. Fernando Torres is my new spiritual leader and the songs sung in the stadium have enlightened me forever. This is my club for life.

So big was my admiration that I decided to celebrate my new path in life with a few drinks accompanied by my fellow Atletí follower Eduardo. We were joined by some Real Madrid infidels but this didn’t change my mood. This night I had been reborn!

So what does this have to do with my camera? Happily we went through the night, taking the occasional picture and as we were heading to the end of the morning we entered the club Vendetta (rapidly replacing ‘the Trinity’ as my local pub/club!) where we kept on taking photographs until one girl dropped my Canon Ixus 65 on the dance floor! (I could have known this was going to happen!)

Luckily my camera was insured against this (how I really don’t know but I don’t have to pay any peseta’s) and I will get it back within a couple of weeks. So, until then you will have to do without pictures. Vamos Atletí!