Day 65: Dresden with the Spanish National Team

A couple of weeks ago, we reserved a screen at a bar called Jim Beams to watch the Spain vs. Slovakia match (the World Cup playoff game). I'm not entirely sure if the friend who made the reservation—a South African guy—had to spend the entire afternoon watching rugby matches at the bar in exchange for getting the screen, but it wouldn't surprise me. Following the request of the Zaragoza delegation, we met two hours before the game for a beer at their Wohnheim (student residence). Luckily, just as we were about to leave for the bar (a 15-minute tram ride away), we got a call telling us that, despite our reservation, they wouldn't be showing the match. The bar was packed with Germans eager to watch their team beat France instead.

And so, the hunt for a place to watch the match began. Our first attempt was Héctor's room, where he had a TV he had bought for €20 (plus €1.50 for a coaxial cable) at the Flohmarkt (a flea market I'll talk about another day). After scanning through the channels on his Orion-brand TV, we couldn't find the game.

Next, we turned to the internet. Well, technically, we had already been listening to the match on Cadena SER online for a while. After some searching, we discovered that CCTV5, the Chinese state television channel, was broadcasting it. After struggling with both the computer and navigating the Chinese-language website, I finally managed to get the match to stream.

Normally, internet radio has a delay of 30 seconds to a minute—but the Chinese TV stream was five minutes behind (and on top of that, it was lagging constantly!). Still, we stuck with it until Spain sealed a 5-1 victory, at which point we headed off to a Polish girl's birthday party—three hours late.

Here in Dresden, you have to bring your own drinks to parties, so at around 11 PM, we went out looking for a place to buy beer. Our first stop was the bar downstairs from the residence, where a game was playing on TV.

Which match, you ask?

Here's a hint: in the background, we could hear...

"Es-pa-ña, Es-pa-ña..."

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