A concert, a soccer game, and an airshow

On Friday night we went to an MTV concert near the Olympic stadium. Five bands played, and two of them were ones I am familiar with--Daniel Powter and Katie Perry. Neither of them headlined, so the other band (Pig Noise) must be fairly big in Europe, but I hadn't heard of them before. The concert was broadcast live on MTV throughout southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, France) so all of the announcements/introductions were made in English, ironically, and then I suppose they were subtitled in various languages for each country.

On Saturday I visited the official FC Barcelona team store, and was going to buy a soccer jersey, but couldnt decide which player I wanted to get, so I didnt get it yet. I guess I need to watch a few more games and learn more about the team.

Saturday night FC Barcelona (typically called Barca--pronounced "barsa") played against the other team from Barcelona called Espanyol (Catalan spelling). Barca is a much better team than Espanyol, but this is still a heated rivalry and usually ends up being a much closer game than it should be. It was a violent game too, as a couple red cards were handed out in the first half. Espanyol had the lead for most of the game, and towards the middle of the second half they had to stop the game to let the police quiet down a riot in the stands and put out a couple of fires. Immediately after that, Barca scored two quick goals and ended up winning the game 2-1. Go Barca!

Today (Sunday) I went to a big airshow down by the beach at a place called El Forum. There were a number of stands set up with posters, pictures, etc about different flying clubs around here. I met a Spanish Air Force pilot, and told him that I'm a pilot and we talked about airplanes for a little while. There were a number of different planes flying overhead, some military, some acrobatic, and some helicopters too. The coolest thing was a jet that did a few maneuvers and then came back around for a low pass, hitting just below the speed of sound right above us (he didn't break the sound barier quite, or else it would have deafened everyone watching) but he got close enough that you could see the condensation ring around the plane form, which happens right before you break the sound barrier. I didnt get a good picture, or else it would make more sense.

As for the rest of the afternoon, I don't have a lot going on. I might go to the Hard Rock Cafe downtown and find out if they show football games there, particularly the Broncos game. I doubt I will be able to find anywhere to show it, but it's worth a try.

Click here to see my photos of the concert and airshow:

Concert and Airshow Sept 26, 28