little Italy becomes little Spain for a day

There was this little thing called the World Cup going on in South Africa over the past few weeks and when Spain won their quarter finals game things got very loud in my neighbourhood.

I love living sandwiched in between Little Italy and Chinatown, since I'm still just learning how to cook. The few blocks in between these two areas contain some pizza, some sushi, some middle-eastern food, and directly across from one another, two latin bars: Plaza Flamingo - a dinner theatre place with live flamenco dancers, and El Rancho - a salsa club where I first learned to salsa dance.

On Sunday, this one block turned into ground zero for Spain fans - and then they won and my street became a parking lot for all the people dancing and singing and honking.

It was nice the see the love happening in the streets again. And the police going back to just hanging out in their summer outfits ...

making the even the Holland fans feel safe to join in the revelry. Crazy, non?