Copa Tanga + Castelldefels
Since uploading the last post from my phone while waiting in the Passeig de Gracia train station, I realized I was waiting on the wrong platform and quickly made my way to the other side to grab the R2S branch of the Renfe heading south to Castelldefels. It wasn't long before I spotted a few people wearing ultimate gear with discs clipped to their backbacks heading to the tournament (Copa Tanga). These three happened to play for Bravas which is the Barcelona based mixed-gender team that practices 2x per week -- once on grass and once on beach.
We caught the Renfe together and arrived in Castelldefels with enough time for me to change clothes, refill water and find my team (Black Bonzai) which was made up a mix of international players including two from the UK, four from Russia, one from Sweden, two from France, two from Switzerland and one from Austria. Most of the team were meeting each other for the first time but all had a connection in common with our team captain Nasser M'bae Vogel who, along with his partner Simone, has been playing ultimate for 30+ years all over the world, including several years in the US where he played in the emerging professional leagues, and with several of the men's club programs. Nas and Simone came from Geneva with their 5 year old daughter Farrah. The age range of our team (including Farrah) was 5 - 47 (though our youngest player was 21) which was another of my favorite characteristics about the team, in addition to our geographic diversity. I also enjoyed learning about what people did for work or "for living" as people referred to their profession; we had several digital nomads doing web development and software work, a social worker, a translator, a humanitarian aid worker for the Red Cross and a biotechnology student.
We formed good team chemistry quickly and played well together, winning 6 games in a row until eventually losing in the final to a very talented team (Sandstrum) composed mainly of players from the German national team. Everyone on Black Bonzai was depressed after the loss but after a swim, some sangria, and some proscuitto and Brie we were ready to join the Germans in the beer garden.
The playing was great and the weekend was very dense socially too. Everyone was very thoughtful and interested to learn more about one another. I ended up chatting with a few of the Russian players about their perspective on the war in Ukraine, the Brits about the monarchy, Brexit and Black Lives Matter in the UK, and Swiss + French teammates about quality of life in Europe.
Re; Russia-Ukraine, none of the Russians were pro-invasion or sympathetic to the antics of the Russian government, but some were semi defensive about the international perception of Russia and Russian people due to the war. We agreed that among developed nations (the US and China for example), there are plenty of historic and present day examples (consider the treatment of migrants at the US-Mexico border, or Uyger internment camps in China) of state-sanctioned violence and oppression which are highly problematic, but are not publicized as thoroughly or consistently because doing so doesn't necessarily serve the economic and political interests of those nations With these contexts in mind I agreed with the Russians that it is important to keep a discerning perspective when absorbing media, because propaganda and nationalistic messaging are pervasive and can distort or misdirect outrage that can and should be directed at every instance of injustice, not just the ones we are told by leading media outlets are the "most important".
Interestingly, each of my Russian teammates left Russia for different reasons, not directly related to policy or quality of life in Russia, but more because of opportunity in other places. Cypress for example (where two members of the team live) now has one of the fastest growing European populations & economies due to tax incentives made available to citizens of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus seeking to live and work in Cypress.
Overall it was a really fun weekend, we stayed in a hotel on the beach and went swimming in the Mediterranean after almost every game. I think I had maybe 10 espressos from the beach restaurant which sponsored the tournament and plenty of good meals as well.
Yesterday morning I grabbed the Renfe back to Canet de Mar (I've probably saved $50 through the free travel program at this point) and struggled to put my work brain back in gear around 3pm as the work day began in the US.
On my walk from the train to the apartment I stopped in on a grocery store and picked up bread, meat and cheese to be my lunch and dinner. Paired with my leftover bottle of $2 wine, it did the trick.
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