Our cancer institute has strong ties with Nike, who sponsor Barca, so I decided to try several channels to see if Nike could help us purchase tickets. To my amazement, Mr. Nelson Farris, a Nike executive here, contacted Mr. Marcos Garzo, a Nike executive in Spain who provided us four tickets gratis.
Buoyed by that news, we flew to Barcelona on a Delta/KLM flight on Friday with a planned arrival on Saturday around 12:15 PM. The game had been scheduled to start at 9PM that same Saturday night, but it was moved up to a 4PM start. Needless to say, this made me quite nervous, and I even considered paying a fee so we could leave one day earlier in case their was a problem with our flight from Portland or our connection in Amsterdam. In the end, I decided to stick with our original flights.
We arrived in Amsterdam with plenty of time to spare. We lined up to board the KLM flight to Barcelona. However, the agent curtly told us we were at the wrong gate. It turned out that there was a different flight operated by Delta that just so happened to be departing for Barcelona at the exact same time... in a different terminal... where the gates were currently closing. Did I mention that that was the last flight that would get us to the game on time?
We sprinted to the other terminal and just barely made it on the plane prior to take-off. We landed in Barcelona on-time only to find that one of our bags did not make it. We finally left the airport one hour later and made it to our apartment at around 1:45 PM. Check-in was at 3 PM, but we were allowed to leave our bags in the apartment. Once we went up, Cate began to fell ill and complained that her stomach hurt. No doubt sleep deprivation and 16 hours of travel were contributory. Moments later, she was vomiting in the bathroom. She felt better afterwards, and so we decided to forge ahead and go to the game.
When we got into the taxi, Cate began to moan and complain about her stomach again. She was half asleep all the while, which made the scene even more troubling. I pictured the mess she might make in the back seat, and I struggled to remember the phrase for "I'm Sorry" in Spanish in case she threw up.
Ultimately, Cate did not vomit, and we arrived safely. Cate pretty much passed out as we made our way into the stadium. However, she woke up right before game time one hour later. She was a new person after a bottle of Sprite and a hot dog!
We made our way to our seats, and we were dumbfounded when we finally found them. The seats were in the VIP section in the second row at the exact mid-field line right behind the players' bench.
My jaw dropped, and we enjoyed watching the players warm-up and converse with each other. There was also a ceremony for Lionel Messi, Barca's forward and the best player on the planet. Messi was presented with the "Golden Shoe" award for the player who scored the most goals in a top European League, and he was literally ten feet away from us!
By the way, the game was incredible with Barca triumphing 4-0! A video is shown below from the club's website.
All in all, it was one of the best experiences of my life. Joy is the word that comes to mind to describe how I felt, particularly after all the challenges prior to the game.
I am not one who believes in fate. However, there were far too many favorable turns of events leading up to the game.
Simply put, we were meant to be there. I am truly grateful to Messrs Farris and Garzo, to Ms. Caitlin Wilson from our cancer institute, and to all the stars that aligned to make that exceptional day a reality!
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