Casillas, Real Madrid & Danny Zuko!!!

Once again I left Santander for the weekend and went to one of my favorite cities in España....Madrid! Just to update you on all my travels (so you can truly see how busy I´ve been) this is where I have gone every weekend: 1st Madrid&Toledo, 2nd Barcelona, 3rd Valladolid, 4th Santander, 5th Lisbon, and 6th Madrid. The upcoming weekends have all been planned, but this coming weekend I´ll only be gone on Sat. for an excursion with my group. Even though it´s been crazy traveling everywhere, I still enjoy it. Alright, let´s talk about Madrid....

Fri Nov.7
Emily and I FINALLY traveled the right way and took a plane from Santander to Madrid that was only 45 mins long. We arrived at the airport around 3:15 and then headed to the metro to meet up with Emily´s friend, Ashley, who was going to stay with us this weekend. Once we were all together, we headed to our hostel. Our hostel was in a great location, a 3 min walk from the metro, 10 mins to Puerta de Sol (one of the main places to visit) and 5 mins from Plaza Mayor. We had a private room for four; Mario stayed with us also. Since Mario wasn´t going to arrive until later that night, the three of us decided to walk around Puerta de Sol and find stores to look at. I remembered that the Real Madrid (for some of you who may not know-but you probably should because I KNOW I talk about them, Real Madrid is one of the best Spanish fútbol teams and my favorite!) store was on one of the streets leaving Puerta de Sol. We walked around a little, stopped in some small shops, and then finally found the Real Madrid store! I was so excited, and the girls wanted to go in to get something for friends. The store had almost everything you could think of with RM´s name on it. What I loved was that they even had things for babies (car seats, plates, bibs, bottles, clothes, etc)....maybe one day. Anyway....needless to say, I spent a lot there and because I spent a certain amount I got 2 FREE tickets to their Tuesday game. Unfortunately, there would be no way I could get back to Madrid on Tuesday to see the game, but still it´s pretty awesome that they were free. Afterward, Emily, Ashley and I went to a cafe to have a little snack and of course I ended up getting chocolate con churros...I seriously love it!

Around 9:30, Mario arrived in Madrid. After he dropped his things off at the hostel, the four of us headed out to Plaza Colon to eat dinner at Hard Rock (FYI their color is an aqua green). Well, apparently Hard Rock is pretty popular in Madrid because we had to wait a little over an hour to be seated. We walked around the area and finally were seated around midnight. We didn´t get back to the hostel until 2:30, but we had fun.


Sat. Nov 8: Mi novio Casillas and Real Madrid Game Day!
Well, as I´ve told you, we went to sleep late and none of us remembered to set an alarm so we didn´t get up until 1 pm! We couldn´t believe it, so we all rushed to get ready and headed over to RM´s stadium: Estadio Santiago Bernebeú to pick up our tickets (just for Mario, Emily and I) because I just wanted to have them to make sure everything would be right. Well the ticket office doesn´t open up until an hour before the game so we decided to walk around the area and find a place to eat. We ate lunch at a Mexican Restaurant called Sí Señor! which was pretty decent. We decided to go to the Museo de Reina Sofia, which has various exhibitions on modern art and that is where La Guernica is displayed (I also went there 3 years ago). It was interesting to go back there and I even got to see some new artists which was fun. It was interesting, but Emily and I finished before the other two so we went to the cafe to get a drink and then met them at the bookstore. We all returned to the hostel to drop off Ashley and get warmer clothes on and then headed to the stadium for the game. The game started at 8 and it was already 7 (it takes awhile to get around with the metro).
El Estadio Santiago Bernebeu
As soon as we got to the stadium, we took some pictures...sorry, none turned out of Mario or me because it was too dark and then I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get our tickets (first I couldn´t find the ticket office, and then I went to the wrong one, but 3rd time´s a charm). FINALLY we got the tickets and I was SOOOOOO excited about getting into the stadium. Once we walked through the hallway of the stadium, and like something out of a movie, and I came closer to the opening of the section where we sat, I just heard all this cheering and saw the bright lights. It filled me with even more excitement. I hadn´t even really looked at the tickets to see where we were to sit (online it told me the 7th row on the very bottom level of the stadium!). I just checked to make sure we had 3 tickets and the right section. Well, I handed my ticket to the man checking them and then, when he pointed me in the correct direction, I looked at my ticket to see our seat numbers and row and that´s when I noticed we were seated in the FRONT ROW!!!!!!!!!!

Marcelo, one of the forwards from Brazil. This is how close we were!
Drenthe keeping the ball from the other team.

This was a dream come true...I know it might sound lame to some of you, but I LOVE RM! So we were front row almost in the exact center of the stadium and maybe 10 feet away from the grass. Anytime the players went off the field to throw the ball in again, we could see them perfectly as if they were next to us! Anyway, it was a great game and very interesting to watch. Casillas was of course the goalie and did an amazing job (except he let one ball into the net....but we won´t talk about that). RM played against Malaga. Malaga made the first goal in the 4th min, then RM made a goal in the 7th min, then Malaga in the 34th min, RM in the 37th Min, Malaga in the 48th min, RM in the 53rd min and RM in the 65th min. Well this is roughly what happened, but RM won 4-3!!!! It was fantastic and we (well Mario and I) were jumping up and down for every goal that RM made! Needless to say, it was fantastic. The pictures below will show you how close we were. FYI my camera ran out of battery and so did Mario´s so I used Emily´s (thankfully), but her camera isn´t as great of quality so the pictures might be a little blurry.

Real Madrid won the game 4-3!


Mario and I in our seats at the game.

Casillas after kicking the ball away from the goal.

My future husband....hehe!

After the game, we went back to the hostel to get Ashley and we ended up walking down Gran Via (one of the main streets in Madrid) and found an Italian restaurant to eat at. Then we returned to the hostel around 1am.

Nov. 9th: El Musical de tu vida (The musical of your life)
Today we were smart and set an alarm to leave our hostel early. We decided to go to El Rastro (a fantastic Flea Market that is open every Sunday). People sell all kinds of things and it is probably about 3 miles long. I found one thing that I loved there, which I bought. It is a poster of the famous Spanish bullfighter Córdobes and in the poster (which looks like an authentic bullfight poster) he is posing with an arched back and the bull is next to him. The reason I liked the poster so much is 1. It didn´t show anything graphic, because I don´t like that they hurt or kill the bull, 2. I love the bullfighters because of the "art" of what they do (the dancing, swinging the cape, etc) and 3. It will be a great souvenir from Spain. We probably walked around for an hour and a half and then walked around some streets near the Atocha train station (where there was a terrorist bombing about 3 1-2 yrs ago). We had lunch and then Mario and I went to the RM stadium to take a tour of it. It was a self-guided tour which wasn´t too exciting, but we got to take our time and I enjoyed it so much. We went to the top of the stadium, went inside the museum (it has a trophy room, talks about the history of the team, shows pictures and fun things like the players id cards once a part of the team, etc), then we walked to the very bottom of the field (where we sat), went to the president´s box (where the president and the royal family sit for the soccer games), we sat where the players sit during the games, walked to the changing rooms, saw the bathrooms (pretty impressive) and ended up at the RM store in the stadium where I bought Mario a xmas gift. All in all, it was fantastic!
At the top of the stadium.

This is the news room. Whenever a new player comes/leaves the team or the president needs to report something it is all done here.

The futbol players seats during games.

This is their bathroom....jacuzzi and all.

Casillas' gloves and autograph in the RM museum.

After the tour, we met up with the girls and headed back for the hostel. Mario got his things together to leave (it was around 5) and then the three of us got ready to go see Grease: El musical de tu vida (Grease: the musical of your life). I do love that slogan. Inside the theater everything had grease all over it (different from other theaters I had been to in the states). The bathroom doors had a Sandy poster for women´s and a Danny poster for men´s, on one of the stairs If you look at it from far away, you can see an image of Sandy and Danny at the end of the movie and there were posters of the cast ALL over the inside of the theater. It was fun because it made it more exciting to see all the posters around. About 15 mins before the show, there was a 50´s DJ playing music from the 50´s (in English) to entertain us.
Teatro Alcala

Overall, the show was pretty good. None of the guys sang or acted very good, but the girls were amazing. The girl who played Sandy looked very similar to Olivia Newton John and sang like her even if it was in Spanish. The girls who played Rizzo & Frenchie also did a fantastic job. The songs were all in Spanish, which was a bummer because they are soooo much better in English. I did enjoy the play though and it was so fun to hear it in Spanish! But for the future, Grease should be only be done by Olivia and John Travolta and the songs are so much better in English!
Emily, Ashley and I in front of one of the many Grease posters.

Good ol' Sandra Dee

Tagline: Bailaras, Cantaras, Te enamoraras (You will dance, you will sing, you will fall in love).....perfect for this musical!

That's about it. Sunday night we had dinner in Plaza Mayor and ate gelato. Then Monday we left early in the morning to get the plane. It was a great trip and Saturday was the BEST day ever....I love Real Madrid!!!

Besitos,
Celeste de Casillas

For those Grease Fans:
RAMMA LAMMA LAMMA KA DINGITY DING DA DONG
SHOO BOP SHOP WADDA WADDA YIPPITY BOOM DA BOOM
CHANG CHANG CHANGITY CHANG SHOO BOP
YIP DA DIP DA DIP SHOO BOP SHA DOOBY DO
BOOGY BOOGY BOOGY BOOGY SHOOBY SHO WAP SHO WAP
SHA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA YIPPITY DIP DA DO
A WOMP BOP A LOOMA A WOMP BAM BOOM