If you wanted to stay somewhere in Europe for 6 days, where would you stay?

[Wernazuma III]

Dubrovnik (southern Croatia) to Berlin must be some 2 days of driving.
So, if Croatia, I'd recommend Istria, Rijeka or Krk-island - the more northern parts.
As for sports bars: In the larger towns you can surely find them, in smaller villages, well, a TV on a chest. But football: everywhere, don't worry about that.

[johncmcleod]

Since you are not looking for big parties (you are profissional sport people,right?) Croatia looks the way to go.

Who said that was the case?

My friend and I already bought special europasses for the world cup. We get everywhere in Germany free during the world cup, and I think it's 300 or 400 (dollars or euro I can't remember)

My friend and I considered Scandinavia, but is it a good place to just chill for a week? That's kind of what we're looking for.

How much will the food and drink in Germany be during the WC?

And I've taken three years of Spanish in school, and I'm pretty good, ie my Spanish teacher is from Madrid and everything in the class is spoken in Spanish, and I can understand pretty much all of it (of course she speaks very slowly and clearly and uses simple vocabulary), but will I be able to communicate with the people in Barcelona speaking 'Catalan'?

And what are some ways to save money? I know we won't be eating out all of the time, I think we'll just get stuff from the market whenever we can to save money, but I don't know what else. We are spending a lot of time staying at places owned by relatives, so that should help somewhat. What else can we do?

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
My friend and I considered Scandinavia, but is it a good place to just chill for a week? That's kind of what we're looking for.

I think it would be excellent for chilling since the tourist masses won't be in Scandinavia during that time. However, I'd still favor the azure sea coast of Croatia.

And I've taken three years of Spanish in school, and I'm pretty good, ie my Spanish teacher is from Madrid and everything in the class is spoken in Spanish, and I can understand pretty much all of it (of course she speaks very slowly and clearly and uses simple vocabulary), but will I be able to communicate with the people in Barcelona speaking 'Catalan'?

Unless you stumble across a really nasty ultra-nationalist Catalan, no problem. People there all speak Spanish perfectly, even if it's not their mother-tongue.

And what are some ways to save money? I know we won't be eating out all of the time, I think we'll just get stuff from the market whenever we can to save money, but I don't know what else. We are spending a lot of time staying at places owned by relatives, so that should help somewhat. What else can we do?

Well, do you plan to stay in hotels? Or travel with a tent? Or rent for the stay in Croatia an appartment where you can cook for yourselves: http://www.interhome.us/index.asp ? They have offers from 3 nights onwards.

Hotels are just big money wasting institutions IMHO.