Arrived at the airport. Kids all slept or at least napped on the flight. Realized I’ve been up for 48 hours. Oops. Customs at Madrid was trivial. I suspect US customs won't be as easy. But at least it will be in our language. We changed $60 for Euro. Kids were excited to see Euros. Followed the signs to the metro. Kate navigated the info stand and the kids “helped” her purchase our metro tix.
The metro was an experience unto itself. We travelled, I’m guessing, 20 miles in 30 minutes for a couple of bucks each. The trick was making the transfers and figuring out which side of the track to be on, and hence which direction. Once we figured out the patterns, it wasn’t too bad. Oddly, it seemed they gave you several options when transferring. Go this way OR this way. Which lead to great confusion in our group. A lady passing by tried to help us, but Kate’s spanish was still gelling together. She’s found the trick though… If you need directions or help look for an older couple walking in the streets. They are SO KIND, and either naturally speak more slowly or know to speak more slowly. We are in debt to several kind couples and people already in Madrid.
Back to the subway… Once, on transfer we kept going up and up and up and missed a branch in the road and ended up going up an escalator where the down escalator was closed. OUCH!!! Painful mistake. We still had all our luggage (actually only 1 large bag and a couple of carry ons) but that was painful enough to not miss our turn again. Again kindness on the metro 2x. One man telling us (in spanish of course) to carry our backpack on our front when we get to line1. Evidently much more vagrants on that line. And another older man giving up his seat for Kate and Maeve. Overall our impression of Spanish people and culture has been terrific. Kind, expressive, tolerant. The other cool thing about the metro was that you could look down ALL the cars at once. No sliding doors between cars. And it was really neat to watch the center standing poles all align on a straightaway, then as you felt yourself going around a curve you could look down the car and watch all the poles curve right or left like you were in the belly of a big snake. Unbelievable how deep some of the tunnels must get. Felt like we were on the escalators up for quite awhile on one transfer. At least 3 LONG flights (I’d tell you how many stairs, but it’s hard to count stairs on an escalator!). Reached our departure and I, for one, was ready to see the light of day. Pierced the surface into Spain
and headed North (or what seemed like North on the map anyway) to our hotel. Again kindness, when a man sitting on a bench gave us directions… Later as we were studying the busy road and wondering how we would cross it, he came running up from his bench and pointed us in the opposite direction… Left not right. In Spanish, of course. Reached our hotel a little early and had to wait for our room. All of us hoping to just lay down and relax or sleep… because that night we needed to head out and see the festivities in the nations capital as they watched their team battle the Netherlands in the World Cup Finals. A place Spain has never been in let alone won! It was great to see the immenseness of such an event first-hand in Madrid. I was also happy that Z could see how much larger soccer is than football. For those who have not experienced European league soccer, it makes American football look like short-track speed-skating during the winter olympics, which I hear is HUGE in some countries, e.g. Japan. But soccer is huge in nearly every country. Especially europe and south america. Really everywhere (but the US).
It’s hard to show in picture the immenseness of the crowd. But they’d shut down the major streets in the center of the city, and had setup a large screen (think stadium rock-band screen). Actually, I found out later they had several screens laid out down the street spaced several blocks apart one after another. Really wasn’t able to count how many they had. Couldn’t see them all. It just seemed to stretch on forever.
I can give you this image of some of the satellite vans for the TV crews that was there covering the event.
This was the edge of the crowd and the kids (nor the parents w/ the kids) wanted to dive deeper. So we took a quick photo op
and headed back towards our hotel. People were still streaming in heading for the celebration. Note Zeke’s cool Spain jersey that we’d picked up at a store. He wanted Casillas but was satisfied with Villa. We were out of Euro after that and a few other purchases and with it being Sunday, had nowhere to change for more. Later we offered US$ for some keychains and one of those bebuze??? horns for Theo (and paid a premium at that… But we were simply grateful that he took US$). The vendor attempted to convince us that for a child like Theo these imitation horns (that to my now fully trained bebuze ear, make a higher pitched and even more annoying noise than the standard horn… IF YOU CAN BELIEVE THAT!!!) would be easier for him. But we stuck with our traditional convictions and he gave it a blow. First attempt, he had it. We all gave it a try… All were able to get some sound. Though Maeve’s could hardly be called loud. Here’s Kate giving it a blow…
On the way home, we popped in wherever there was a TV. And wherever there was a TV, the places were packed with folks out enjoying the game together.
We got back to the hotel at half with the game still tied. And watched at the hotel. Surprisingly still tied at end of regular. And in the final minutes of overtime a score. We were far from the city center at that point, but we could hear the noise erupt on the streets outside. What jubilance for Spain. After the kids celebrated, we forced them to bed. And despite protests, they slept. And as it turns out… slept and slept and slept. We started the next day much later than planned!!!
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