Paragliding and Futbol!

This past Saturday me and thirteen others from the UNH crew went paragliding in the Sierra Nevadas, and the day could not have been more beautiful. We had to separate in half because only seven of us could go at the same time. I was the first group to go. Before meeting up with anyone else I hadn't really put much thought into how I felt about it. I didn't think about being nervous till a few of the other girls said they were, but I was mostly just excited. I was only nervous a bit when we drove to our take off spot. The road ended up being dirt, and like most roads in Granada, very narrow. We were on the side of a mountain and one foot off the side of the road was a cliff. The driver also told us its a two way road, so we had to keep our eyes out for cars before well before we went around the corners... yikes!
Finally at our take off point, the guides strapped us in and we were on our own from there. Just kidding, they were strapped in with us as well. To get flying you need to run and keep running until they say stop. My paraglider told me to start walking forward a few steps forward as he untangled the lines, then all of a sudden he was yelling at me to run. To get going you need to run down/off the mountain which was kind of freaky to think about when they told me but when I did I didn't feel scared at all because I was so focused on actually getting into the air.
Once in the air, it was amazing. After we got into the air, the guy kneed me forward and I fell into the seat. It didn't get too windy till after my flight, so the groups after went much, much higher than I did. It was amazing nonetheless. He let me take over the steering and told me to steer towards certain points. To go lower and to land you pull on the straps, and to keep flying the opposite. He said to watch the birds because they use the same warm air bubbles as we would to go higher. My flight lasted about 25 minutes, and at the end he asked if i wanted to do "acrobatic moves". Of course I said yes. He told me to focus on the corner of the parachute so I didn't get motion sickness and yanked on the right corner of the wing, causing us to go in fast big circles. I couldn't stop laughing the whole time; it felt like going down a huge drop on a roller coaster. Below I inserted the video they made of the group because I had trouble uploading it via the video option. I'm the first one to go!


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzAD1R-zrjk&feature=share

The next night in Granada we all went to the Granada vs. Valencia futbol game, aka soccer. Valencia is  ranked third, below Barcelona and Real Madrid, and Granada is 16th. In Spain, the fans are religiously Real Madrid fans or Barcelona. Granada has moved up two divisions in the past year or two, which is a huge deal. They ended up losing the game unfortunately, 1-0, but played a much better game overall. The atmosphere of futbol games here is incredibly intense. Since Spain has no other huge sports, everyone is an intense futbol fan. At any call that was not in favor of Granada, whether a fair/bad/missed call, many people would scream "death!" "Son of a bitch!" and many other things along those lines, as well as standing up and shaking their fists at the field. Somewhat like a Red Sox vs Yankee game, right? Everyone had their Granada scarves to wave, and the crowd was a sea of red and white. Upon entering, the workers checking out tickets wouldn't let my friend take in her Camelback water bottle. He said if she got mad she could hit someone with it or throw it at someone. My reasoning was she should be able to take it in because the water bottle's expensive (they also don't sell water bottles around here), and because we're American's and won't get as rowdy as all the other Granandinos. However she ended up having to ask a bartender to save it for her instead. Despite this the game was very fun and no one got hit with anything!