It's Football, sucker!

We finally booked a hotel in Barcelona! Yeah! I was getting worried that there'd be no rooms available by the time we got around to do it. We found some nice inexpensive hotels last week, but they all seemed to be in rowdy parts of Barcelona. So, today, after some more searching and browsing, we settled on Ayre Hotel Gran Vía. Maggie is still a little worried about the area around the hotel, although all the travellers reviews are positive. It really is a shot in the dark, booking a hotel through the Internet. We've never been to Spain and are not in the slightest familiar with Barcelona, all we can do is trust the reviews written by people who'd been there.

The Incredible Hulk movie starts playing today. I'm not sure I'm willing to pay the theatre ticket for it, but I'd definitely see it on DVD, when it comes out. Apparently, Toronto's Yonge street is being ripped apart in the movie. I wouldn't miss that for the world!

I'm not a die-hard football (yes, that's the soccer kind of football) fan, but today was a don't-miss game: Germany vs. Croatia. I am a realistic person, and expected nothing but Croatia's defeat, but some kind of national pride made me watch the game and hope for a miracle. And, what do you know! The miracle happened, the Croats not only won, but completely outclassed the Germans. They looked every bit like a heavy favorite in the match. The only thing that concerns me now is the mentality I know so well: now that they beat the Germans, they'd just lay back and think they're unbeatable. Some lesser team will knock them from the competition and that'll be the end of the fairy tale. The Croats are the best when they are underdogs, then some kind of spite combined with pride makes them very dangerous. So I wouldn't jinx them, I'll never mention them as favorites for high placement, though secretly I'll wish for it. I think a team which eliminated England from the qualifiers for Euro Cup deserves it!

Speaking of soccer--I understand that north Americans needed a word to distinguish their football from the-rest-of-the-world's football, but why does that word need to be so similar to sucker?