Our summer Vibe Box is by European Vibe’s own Helen Macrae.

She brings us her top ten songs to listen to while enjoying the summer/lazing by the pool.

These are the second three:

Manu Chao - Me Gustas Tu

Planet Funk - Chase The Sun (Club Mix)

Skee-Lo - I Wish

Our summer Vibe Box is by European Vibe’s own Helen Macrae.

She brings us her top ten songs to listen to while enjoying the summer/lazing by the pool.

These are the first three:

 Terrorvision - Tequila

Cassius - The Sound of Violence (Club Mix)

The Beach Boys - I Get Around

By Will Cade

Some days, I feel more Spanish than American. Granted, my Spanish isn’t spectacular, but when I’m sitting on a terraza, sipping on a cafe after a menu del dia, I feel right at home. One thing I just haven’t been able to get used to, though, is soccer. Oops, I mean football, but not American football, as I’ve learned to call it.

Either way, as Spain was making its way into the Euro Cup Semi-finals last month, I wasn’t paying much attention. I was a lot more excited about getting to visit my girlfriend in Germany - and a bit nervous about meeting her parents. My girlfriend was also excited about me coming, but she did have other things on her mind. After Germany won its more crucial games, she drove around her hometown honking her horn until it smelled like burning rubber.

When I got to Augsburg, about an hour outside of Munich, football was my last concern. How I was supposed to make a good impression was a much more pressing matter, being that I don’t speak German and my girlfriend´s parents can only put together a few phrases in English. After an awkward hello (or hallo in German) everything went fine. We all had lunch together, with my girlfriend and her brother translating and me gesturing happily to fill in the gaps. Afterwards, as we drove to their house, my girlfriend pointed out that for every three cars with a German flag, there was one with a Turkish flag. I didn’t even know Turkey and Germany were supposed to play, but I thought it was ironic, considering that Germany had so many Turkish immigrants.

I settled in easier at their house than I expected, but staying with a German family was, well, different. I have to admit I was rather impressed with how her family functioned. She usually cooked, her brother did the dishes, her mom worked a half-day and did some extra things around the house, and then her father worked full-time. And me, I just enjoyed getting to see my girlfriend and tried to make her parents chuckle as I acted out what I wanted to say.

My girlfriend still had university things to take care of, so one night I decided to go to Munich to visit a friend of mine from the states. I thought I would catch the train, grab a map of the U-Bahn, guestimating when I would get there and leaving a window of about 30 minutes or so for unexpected changes. My girlfriend, however, had something else in mind. Within 30 seconds, she had pulled up two German websites - one for the national railway system, and another for the Munich U-Bahn - and printed me off directions detailing not only the train times and platform numbers, but even the times for each change on the U-Bahn I would need to take to get there exactly on time. How organized, I thought.

Munich was quite a change from Madrid. When I first started walking around the city, passing people sitting outside at cafes, I felt a bit out of sorts, as if in a dream even. Then I realized what was different: the Germans were mighty quiet compared to their Spanish counterparts. As I walked past more than a few parks, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. And there were no crazed scooters weaving in and out of traffic. Having dinner with my friend on a calm terrace, I decided I could very easily live in this city.

Even with her studies, my girlfriend had planned some activities for us in her hometown. We picked strawberries in a small field close to her house, and she walked me through downtown Augsburg, telling me tidbits about the place like its having the oldest public housing community in Europe. She was probably the best tour guide I’ve ever had, and she let me decide most of what we did. Her one request, though, was that we watch the Semi-Finals between Germany and Turkey, but she let me choose where.

Our choices were either at a “public viewing,” her house, or her neighbor’s house. From what I gathered, a public viewing was essentially a projection screen and an innumerable hoard of drunk football fans, so I decided against that one. Her neighbor’s were actually Turkish, and between the rivalry and my lack of German, I decided against that one as well. So we ended up watching the game in her bedroom on the top floor of her house, while her parents watched downstairs.

I had seen one or two football games since I had been in Europe, but this felt like uncharted territory. Even so, I quickly fell into the excitement of the game. I found myself commenting on the abilities of some of the German players (something I was most definitely not qualified to do) and screaming like a banshee when Germany scored. Watching the game here felt perfect. The other options ceased to exist in my memory - until Turkey scored, and I heard the Turkish neighbors hooting and hollering next door. A palpable silence swept through every floor of my girlfriend’s house.

The game continued, with the moments of yelling and silence switching back and forth between my girlfriend’s house and the neighbors next door. All of the sudden the broadcast went out. A screen popped up, and although I couldn’t understand the German, I was relatively sure it meant they were experiencing technical difficulties. Speaking partly to the television and partly to me, my girlfriend said, “But we’re German; we’re supposed to be efficient.” At the time, I didn’t even laugh, but could only agree.

After a few minutes of this screen, the game came back on, and a unanimous yell arose from both houses. Germany ended up scoring and winning in the last minute, setting the house into a frienzy. My girlfriend and I left to drive around Augsburg, honking the horn at every car passing by. Germans were walking down the sidewalks carrying their flag and yelling at every car as it honked past. Even with all of the hoopla, everyone seemed relatively well behaved.

The rest of my stay in Augsburg went well, and I didn’t want to leave. Two of my sisters were visiting London, and I hadn’t seen them in almost a year, so I wanted to make it there for a short weekend trip before heading back to Spain. I hadn’t even thought about how the Spanish team was doing.

by Lewis Husbands

No it’s not another over-publicised, over-priced, over-hyped sporting event, but I recently decided to take a trip to Barcelona (for the first time) and with absolutely no plans or research apart from checking transport details from the airport I decided that I would discover my own Barcelona- but with only one thought in mind- how does Barcelona measure up in comparison to Madrid?

So 40 mins later and 1.60€ lighter (which of course was the first thing I noticed- cheaper than Madrid’s metro + airport supplement) I disembarked from the Cercanías service and was ready to explore in the blistering heat. After a bit of guess work and wandering I arrived completely by accident at the “Arc de Triomf” which I found quite amusing as I had not only seen the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but I was reminded of my own Arc in Madrid, the “Arco del Triunfo de Moncloa”, which I had always know as the big Arc at Moncloa.

Almost immediately I was beginning to identify with this city and come to grips with what looked like a language that mixed both Spanish & French on sign-posts and street-signs, so I decided to get something to eat and reflect on what I had seen and have a bit of a think on what to do next…

For around 5€ I managed to pick up a cold ”Ice Té” & a rather large “jamon y queso” baguette after worrying that 10€ would possibly not be enough to cover it. Pleased with myself I pressed on to find accomodation. As it was the week before ____ it was not too expensive but I am sure prices will just increase as Summer goes on, but generally I was surprised on how things were not really more expensive than Madrid.

by Katie Chavez

P.S. I Love You, or Posdata te quiero as it is called here in Spain, is a surprisingly charming romantic comedy about death and widowhood. Hilary Swank as Holly, the bereft and vulnerable widow, and Gerard Butler as Gerry, her gruff and tender husband.

The basic plot of the movie is this: an American woman marries an Irishman when they, especially she, are very young. By the end of ten years, she’s a widow. The movie follows her a year over the grieving process, as she is helped along by letters sent seemingly from beyond the grave by her dead husband. As each letter comes, Holly is able to take a step closer to regaining her balance in life and a sense of self beyond what she previously possessed. The film managed to explore a very difficult topic while at the same time maintaining a sense of humor and levity in the face of sorrow, and manages to avoid heaviness while not understating the grief of its main character. The supporting cast is strong and adds much of the humor and heart to the piece. No person, even a grieving widow is an island, Gerry reminds his wife, but it is the other characters in the movie which prove this to be true, from Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon as her best friends, to Kathy Bates as her mother, to the hopelessly love-struck Harry Connick Jr. and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the charming (and living) counterpart to Butler’s dead paramour. While all performances were fairly strong, I must shy away from creating unrealistic expectations. It is quite possible to enjoy yourself while watching this film. I would just recommend that you do what I did – go in with low expectations. Then when you walk out, you can say to yourself or your companion, “hey, that wasn’t that bad!”

European Vibe Magazine’s art director and biggest football fanatic Phily McIvor brings us his all-time top ten football-related songs. To celebrate the end of the tournament and Spain’s victory, here are Phily’s top three football songs ever.

1 - Baddiel/Skinner/Lightning Seeds - Three Lions [England] - Euro 96

2 - New Order - World In Motion [England] - World Cup 90

3 - Horselips - Put ‘Em Under Pressure [Ireland] - World Cup 90