SIFE World Cup Opening Ceremony!!
We made it! And, as far as we know, all in one piece! The last leg of our flight (Frankfurt to Barcelona) was with Iberia. We were all slightly worried when the lady called out the boarding call in Spanish with no English translation whatsoever! Fingers crossed that they speak English in Spain because otherwise I'll have to rely on my two word Spanish vocabulary (and something tells me that you need to know more than 'Hello' and 'Thankyou' to survive in Spain).
The first thing that strikes you when your feet touch Spanish soil is the beautiful heat. What a relief it is to reach a place where the temperature hovers above zero degrees celsius once in a while (unlike a certain clean green country on the edge of the planet that I will not name..)! And the heat is a good type of heat, you don't get the sharp burning 'cancer-causing' sensation you get in New Zealand during summertime.
The second thing that strikes you are the Spanish customs officials. Well.. they struck us anyway. They accused us of illegally importing electronic goods (namely the stereo and 2 laptops we brought with us for the presentation). Not exactly the most economical way to import electronic goods... $3000 (the cost of a plane ticket from NZ) to import one stereo. I maintain that it was because we brought Sajjad along... I warned the team that it was a bad idea to take a Muslim along with us to Europe but would they listen....
Shrugging off our experiences at Spanish customs & lugging along way too much gear, we managed to make it to the Princess Sophia Hotel, where the Opening Ceremony was due to start. Unfortunately we missed the technical check due to our late arrival time but.. the important thing was that we were in time for the Opening ceremony! If we had videotaped it, it would seem like the most bizarre hyped up thing. But when you're actually there it's a totally different story. You can't help but get consumed in the hype of 40 different countries and an atmosphere of total celebration! Take a look at the pics below and I think you'll see what a unique experience it is!
But the SIFE World Cup is very much a 'flash in the pan' experience.. tomorrow we start our first round of competition and we've only been in the country for around 5 hours! The competition is tough and we have the disadvantage of presenting first up in our round. The team is ready (despite the jet lag) & we're all prepared for the moment we've prepared months for...Fingers crossed!
The first thing that strikes you when your feet touch Spanish soil is the beautiful heat. What a relief it is to reach a place where the temperature hovers above zero degrees celsius once in a while (unlike a certain clean green country on the edge of the planet that I will not name..)! And the heat is a good type of heat, you don't get the sharp burning 'cancer-causing' sensation you get in New Zealand during summertime.
The second thing that strikes you are the Spanish customs officials. Well.. they struck us anyway. They accused us of illegally importing electronic goods (namely the stereo and 2 laptops we brought with us for the presentation). Not exactly the most economical way to import electronic goods... $3000 (the cost of a plane ticket from NZ) to import one stereo. I maintain that it was because we brought Sajjad along... I warned the team that it was a bad idea to take a Muslim along with us to Europe but would they listen....
Shrugging off our experiences at Spanish customs & lugging along way too much gear, we managed to make it to the Princess Sophia Hotel, where the Opening Ceremony was due to start. Unfortunately we missed the technical check due to our late arrival time but.. the important thing was that we were in time for the Opening ceremony! If we had videotaped it, it would seem like the most bizarre hyped up thing. But when you're actually there it's a totally different story. You can't help but get consumed in the hype of 40 different countries and an atmosphere of total celebration! Take a look at the pics below and I think you'll see what a unique experience it is!
But the SIFE World Cup is very much a 'flash in the pan' experience.. tomorrow we start our first round of competition and we've only been in the country for around 5 hours! The competition is tough and we have the disadvantage of presenting first up in our round. The team is ready (despite the jet lag) & we're all prepared for the moment we've prepared months for...Fingers crossed!
posted by Dileepa at 4:00 pm
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