Monday, July 12, 2010

Somos los campeones!!!!!!!



In case you haven't seen my facebook posts, Spain won! Yep, historic game- finally Spain wins a World Cup! Last night was one of the most phenomenal of our lives. Guillermo's definitely. The kids thought all the people were crazy, but they enjoyed being out among all the chaos. Maria was more worried about how they were going to clean the streets with all the garbage! She is a very environmentally conscious young lady. (I am very proud!)

This is the final whistle of the game and Guillermo celebrating with the kids. We celebrated more with the goal just a few minutes before, but I didn't get that on camera. And what a goal it was. Just four minutes till the end of overtime! Thank goodness it didn't come down to penalty kicks. It's funny, when I first came to Spain and started watching soccer, excuse me, fĂștbol, I thought ending a game with penalty kicks was so awesome. But, as the years have passed and I actually watch the games and can understand the play on the field, I have come to the decision that penalty kicks really put the previous 120 minutes of play in the trash. What I mean is that even though no goals have been scored and technically both teams are even, there usually is one team that has played a better game. I've been rooting for teams on both sides of this. Penalty kicks can go either way. So, I am so happy Iniesta was able to convert his awesome play throughout the whole tournament into the most important goal of all!

So, after the game we went out to the streets. I have honestly never seen anything like it. There must have been very few people inside their homes. We took the metro towards the celebrations, but looking back, we probably did not even have to go as far towards the center as we did. We came up to Calle Alcala right next to the Parque del Retiro. (It is like the central park of Madrid) We walked down towards the Cibeles fountain and the Paseo de Recoletos where the big screens were. This is where things got crazy. Really crazy. The streets heading towards Cibeles were full of cars going nowhere and people. Waving flags, singing, horns, and lots and lots of RED. When we got to Cibeles, I realized it was even bigger than we thought. The Castellana is the main street that divides Madrid and runs north/south. Normally it is six lanes of traffic, but last night it was six lanes of people. The whole street! So cool.




We bowed out at 1:30 or so, but I don't believe there are many people working in Madrid, or the rest of Spain, today. We just finished watching the airplane carrying the team arrive in Madrid. The team was received by a huge party. They got on a bus and are headed to a luncheon, to meet the King and then the president. After that, this afternoon they will get on a double decker bus and there will be a parade through through the streets of Madrid. We are planning of venturing out to see that as well!

Now it's off to buy tshirts and posters and all those "souveniers" that you have to spend money on for these types of events. I am happy to do it! Love to everyone!

Stay tuned...

Jane

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