My Spanish Thanksgiving Dinner......and apple pie.

I hope all of your Thanksgiving dinners were fantastic and delicious....how jealous I am of those who ate stuffing and pumpkin pie. Anyway, it was a fantastic surprise (although Emily and I knew ahead of time because Carmen accidentally let it slip). Well, this is the first year she had done this, but Carmen wanted our group to have a Thanksgiving dinner since we would all be missing it. She found a bar/restaurant that prepares food for large groups and asked them if they could make us a "Thanksgiving" dinner. They did it for us...a little different, but it was delicious. We had dinner around 9pm and it was fun because we were all in a room that was blocked off from the rest of the place so we could just have fun.
Las Guapas...all dressed in black: Emily, Hayley, me and Megan. Fun times with these girls.

Before the main dish came out we had Spanish appetizers: jamon serrano and tortilla de patatas, both which I love. We also had a bottle of wine to share between three people and unlimited amount of water and refrescos (this is NOT normal in Spain). After a half hour the best part came out...the turkey! There wasn´t one turkey, but 2! We couldn´t believe it. Along with the turkey we had blueberry sauce, mashed potatoes, apple sauce and lots of bread. The turkey was surprisingly delicious, juicy and with lots of flavor. It was really fun just to be with my group and talk about our Thanksgiving dinners at home and our families.
This is one half of my group: Left-Megan, Carmen, Mayte, Right-Michelle, Jordan, Rachel & Sheila
The fun group (aka my group) Left-Mayte, Jairo, Tyler, Spencer, Right- Me, Hayley, Emily, Corie and Shannon
Tyler cutting the turkey for all of us!

After an hour, the postre came out. It was interesting, a Spanish postre no doubt. It was a kind of pumpkin cake with custard. It was good though and still nice that I had something with pumpkin. After dinner we all went around sharing something we were thankful for. We ended up staying at the restaurant until 11:30pm and then all went home. I had so much fun and lots of pictures to share...as usual!

My Valladolid Thanksgiving!
I really wanted to see Julio, Edita and Mayuka one more time before Christmas and because I am so close to them I wanted to take advantage of that. So this past weekend (Fri-Sun) I went to Valladolid. I had a great time and didn´t do anything exciting. Mayuka and I walked around the town a lot and reminisced about the past. It was fun because at certain places (like a church, or the bars, or a café) I remembered a conversation or something I had done there and it was so clear for me. I was very happy to be there again...to be home. :D
Mayuka and I in front of La Iglesia La Antigua
Anyway, on Saturday Edita had told me that we are going to have a very special lunch on Sunday. She said she is going to make a Spanish style Thanksgiving "dinner". On Sunday, I was soooo happy about the lunch and couldn't wait. When I went into the dinning room, the table was decorated all beautifully with Christmas decorations! Edita had left the kitchen to do something and so Kaelyn and I sneaked into the kitchen to try to find the apple pie. We looked everywhere, the fridge, the cupboards, the oven and couldn't find the pie anywhere. Kaelyn was really sad that we weren't going to have an apple pie, but still we had a lot of food to eat. Edita made an amazing meal and it was all delicious! We first had a vegetable plate with green beans, garlic, onions, potatoes and zucchini. Then we had the main course which was a huge roasted turkey stuffed with fruit. I've never thought about having fruit in a chicken, but Edita put in apples, mangoes and pears. It was sooo delicious and added a great flavor to the chicken. When we were all done Edita cleared off the table and then oddly went into her bedroom. I turned to Kaelyn and said, I bet you she put the postre in her bedroom so we wouldn't see it! I quickly grabbed my camera to take a picture and I got a good one. If you look at it you can see the very proud grin on Edita's face.

Mi abuelo espanol, Julio and I
Edita with a sneaky grin on her face!

Anyway, the apple pie was very different from our own, but it was still good. It had warm apples with cinnamon and then I'm not sure what else it's made with, but I did enjoy it. I did however miss Thanksgiving at home...I wish I had stuffing.

I wish you all a wonderful week and weekend and tomorrow I'm going to Prague!!! I'll let you know how it was when I return. Besitos :D

Salamanca...full of history!

Salamanca was so much fun because 1. I had been there before so I somewhat knew where things were, 2. I was in Castilla-Leon (the autonomía where Valladolid is and where pure castellano is spoken), and 3. Almost my whole group (except Michael & Jairo-typical) went to Salamanca so it was really fun for all of us to be together (until the 2nd day when some started getting sick of others). Salamanca was really cold because of where it is located and it was 8 degrees Celsius colder than in Santander.

We were in Salamanca from Friday, Nov. 21, to Sunday, Nov. 23. On Sunday, we got back early so that we could ALL go to a FREE Racing Santander game (fútbol). Friday we left at 9am and luckily Carmen asked our professors for the day off so we didn´t miss any school...woo hoo! We got to Salamanca around 1:30 (it doesn´t take too long to get there, but we had to have a café break). On the bus ride we watched Harry Potter in español and Sheila and I talked about the movie and the books almost the whole ride down. Good times :D !

So when we arrived in Salamanca I was so relieved that we were in a nice hotel and that all of us were on the same floor so we were able to visit each others rooms and such. Hayley, Emily, Sheila, Naomi and I decided to go out and get some lunch (since it was around 2 already). We ended up going to this really nice café in la Plaza Mayor. Plaza Mayor was so much fun; it had a sculpture exhibition in the center of the plaza with some very interesting sculptures (you'll see). After lunch we walked around the streets near our hotel and found a pet store with 4 adorable puppies sleeping in one of the windows! We returned to the hotel to go on a tour given by the best Spanish guide I've ever had...Carmen!
Las chicas majas! Hayley and I
The beautiful Plaza Mayor.
The sharpay aka "wrinkles" is my favorite!

Carmen took us to see la Casa Universitaria which hundreds of years ago used to be the main Universidad de Salamanca where famous Spanish writers and historians taught and studied. Now it is used more like a museum with all the original furniture and decorations. It was really neat to see. Then we walked outside of the building and looked at the wonderful sculptures on the front of the university. There is a legend that if you find the frog among the sculptures, you will pass you exams and graduate. Some also say that you will return to Spain (I found it three years ago...I guess the legend is true!). It was fun to see the other people in my group trying to find the frog...it is so difficult and you have to stand at the door for a long time before you can find it. After the University tour, Carmen took us to Plaza Mayor (because some hadn't gone yet) and told us of places to eat and pointed out some good bars and discotecas (dance clubs) to go to. :D
Plaza Mayor with the "Marie Antoinette" like sculptures.
Casa Universitaria. You can't see the frog in this picture, but it is on top of a skull on the column that sticks out on the right side and the second row that sticks out from the bottom.

I, and some other people from my group, decided to walk down some of the streets of Salamanca to look at the shops. Later, we decided to go get some Mexican food which ended up being delicious. We sat at a large table (there were 8 of us) and we were placed right underneath a large flat screen TV that was playing crappy telenovelas...not cool. The people I went to dinner with decided to go out to the bars and for the first time (well Thursday night I went out with three girls in Santander, but only until 2am) this trip I decided to stay out late. Before we went out we took a short siesta so we were rested and then headed out to the bars around 12 am. I'll just say I didn't really drink...we were out until 5am (like true Spaniards) and I had a really good time with the people I was with.
Camelot: the discoteca that played non-stop techno music...gag me. The funny thing is that the owners lease the place from a church!
(on top) Me, Hayley, Emily, Spencer and (on bottom) Shannon, Megan and Tyler in the street!
Corie (San Diego), Shannon, Emily and I.

Saturday we spent the morning on a tour with Carmen. She took us to see the two cathedrals: La Antigua y La Nueva. Salamanca is the only city (besides one other in the Philippines) in the world that has two cathedrals. The reason a city in the Philippines has two cathedrals is because King Felipe II (?) built the two cathedrals in both cities. The cathedrals were beautiful and I had really enjoyed going into them because I had never been able to before. We also saw the outside of the Convento de San Esteban, which is a good example of barroque (I think) architecture. After, we had free time.

Emily and I both read Lazarillo so we wanted to see the historic places in Salamanca that were talked about in the novel. The cool thing about Spanish writers is that they include real facts and places in their novels, whether the actual story is true or not, so you can go to a city and see what the writer is talking about. We went down to the Rio Tormes (which is where Lazarillo was born, hence his name Lazarillo de Tormes), we also saw the statue of a bull made out of rock which the blind man used to trick Lazarillo. The blind man told Lazarillo to put his ear against the rock and listen for a sound. As soon as Lazarillo did that, the blind man hit Lazarillo's head really hard against the rock. He told Lazarillo he did this because he always needs to be prepared and be smarter than the rest to be a good guide. Anyway, it was interesting to me. Also, they had a statue of "el ciego y Lazarillo".
El ciego y Lazarillo.
The bull made of stone.
A view of the Nueva Catedral.

Emily and I then looked at some stores so she could get some souvenirs and then we caught up with Megan and just wandered around. We ended up taking a siesta (mine for 2 1/2 hours!!!). And then I went to dinner with the same people that I went out to the bars with. After dinner we walked around for a little bit and then decided to get some gelato...yuuuuuum. We got back to our hotel around 1am.

On Sunday morning we got up early and left for Santander again to go to the game. EVERYONE slept on the bus because of how exhausted we were from the trip.

RACING SANTANDER!
The game was so much fun. More so because almost everyone in our group was there and we were having a blast (Naomi and Jairo didn't come). Shannon and I were the only ones that displayed team spirit by buying the team's scarf (even though I don't care for the team since they are not very good, I wanted a souvenir). We all had fun and luckily it only rained on us for 10 minutes and then it cleared up. Racing played against Espanyol (a Barcelona team....ACK!) and Santander beat them 3-0!!! It was very exciting. Carmen's boyfriend, Javier, came too so I talked to him a little about Real Madrid because he's a Real fan too...hehe...I love futbol! Anyway, I think that's about it. Oh, when you look at the Santander futbol stadium and compare it to Madrid's you'll notice a huge difference. 1. Madrid is much richer, 2. Santander has only been in 1st division for 4 years and 3. Madrid's stadium is 3 times as large!
Racing is in white.
Javier and Carmen!
Shannon and I showing our Racing spirit!
The girls club: Shannon, Hayley, Jordan, Me, Emily and Megan. Don't we look so cozy.
I hope all of you are well and I send hugs and kisses to all of you! I will write again soon!
Besitos! :)

New friends...new memories...new beginnings

Every week UIMP (my university) has a program that invites Spaniards to go to Santander for 1 week to take an intensive English course. When they say intensive, they really mean it. The Spaniards have class 9-2:15pm then lunch 2:30-4 and then class 4-6 and then 6:30-9pm they have an activity and 9-10 dinner. Now this immersion program offers anyone who speaks English fluently (or almost) the opportunity to be a language partner to these students and we get paid! We can choose to eat with the Spaniards for 1 meal=10 euros or eat both meals=20 euros and we can do the activity if we want. All we have to do is speak English with the students. It sounds perfect, right? I´ve been doing this 2 times every week, but I don´t like it very much because I´m not practicing Spanish, which is why I´m here. Almost every week, the spaniards I meet don´t want to talk to Emily and me in English because they´re tired from their classes and they don´t want to speak a language they hardly know (most are beginners or intermediate level). So it isn´t really that fun for these reasons.

Thankfully, last week (nov. 17-20) was completely different! Emily and I decided to do it for 3 meals and on a Monday (which is the hardest day because the Spaniards are just getting into the routine) we were so lucky because the table we sat at had 3 girls and 1 guy who really wanted to talk and get to know us (which was the first). I don´t want to sound lame or anything, but it was so nice to feel like I was helping them and they actually wanted to know me and vice-a-versa of course. Because the first day went so well, Emily and I added two more meals and Karaoke night (on Thursday). I won´t bore you with too many details (if you want me to tell you more about my new amigos, let me know), but I had such a fun time with them and we talked so much and I got to know them so well! So, here´s some info about my new Spanish friends (YAY!!!). Natalia: 24, she´s from Leon (the city where I had the terrible experience with the masked group of guys) and has lived there all her life, she´s finishing up her thesis and while she does that she is working at a day care. She offered Emily and I to go visit her and she would give us a personal tour of her city.

Veronica: 22, she´s from Cordoba (where Mario is) and went to school there, she works but I´ve forgotten what she does. She told me that when I go to Granada and visit Cordoba, we can do things together and that she will show me around. Lucía: 23, she and Natalia were the two girls who I´ve been in contact with the most since they were in Santander. We all talk on messenger together in Spanglish, which is a blast! They write well and the three girls are high intermediate in English. Lucía is from Avila (close to Valladolid) and that is where she works, but she goes to Granada on the weekends for school. She told me that when we´re both in Granada, we´ll do things together...yay for new friends! These girls were amazing and definitely made me feel like one of their friends. I can´t wait to see them again (we email/messenger/send comments on facebook to each other all the time :D ).

Now the 4th person I was able to get to know really well (there were 3 girls and one guy that Emily and I sat with during every meal) was Guillermo, 25. Guillermo is from the Canary Islands, specifically from la Gran Canaria. His Spanish accent is different than all the rest because he doesn´t pronounce the s and z with the th sound. He has a more latin american accent. He went to school in Madrid, but is getting his masters back at home in physical therapy. He wants to help people who have suffered accidents and can not walk or move their bodies, and he wants to help them be able to walk and move around again. His English was amazing; he is in superior. After he left Santander, we talked and decided to write emails to each other to help each other with the language we´re learning. So we write half in English and half in Spanish...finally I get to use my Spanish! He also is in a band so it made Karaoke more fun.

Karaoke: So from 6:30-9 in the cafe next to our class building, we had a karaoke night. Anyone could sing and some people were dancing while most were talking. I spent most of the night with Lucía and Guillermo. The Karaoke songs were all in English and not very good songs (except for some Beatles and Oasis). Guillermo sang two songs by Oasis ? and Yesterday by the Beatles. It was fun and he had a pretty good voice. Lucía didn´t sing and neither did I...I´m sure you already guessed that...hehe. Anyway, I had a great time with these 4!

I have a few pictures and Natalia has more, but I´m still waiting for her to send them to me.

Lucía and I.....awwww how adorable! (if you see something on her nose its a nose ring)

Guillermo and I outside the café.

Natalia (from Leon), Emily, me and Josefin. Josefin is in my grammar class and she is wonderful. She´s from Sweden and she speaks Swedish, English perfectly, and Spanish almost perfectly. She´s trilingual...and I´m so jealous. :)

Hope you enjoyed! Besitos!

My new haircut!

Some of you don't know this, but I got a haircut two weeks ago. I went into the salon asking for a trim and some layers and I ended up leaving with a totally different and new style. I officially have a corta de pelo de moda espanola (a spanish trendy haircut). I've learned to love it and I hope you all do too.

The most beautiful spots in Cantabria...Puente Viesgo, Santillana del Mar y Comillas

*Forgive me for taking so long to write about this trip.

We're standing in front of the beach, but you can't see it! Me, Pilar, Emily, Andrea and Corie.

Saturday the 15th of Nov. my ISA group had a one day excursion to three different, but all spectacular cities within Cantabria. Cantabria is one of the 17 comunidades autonomias (provinces) of Spain. Cantabria is the autonomia that I live in, in Santander. Cantabria and most of northern Spain is known for its beautiful beaches, which I must say are amazingly blue and clear. So on this excursion I was able to learn and see more of Cantabria, its history, and bella cities.

Puente Viesgo (puente=bridge)
This city is very historical because it is the city that has the oldest cave paintings in Spain. The caves of Altamira are beautiful and very colorful. When we went into the caves we had to go very deep into the ground to see the cave paintings. We were told that there are other caves in northern Spain that also were lived in by prehistoric people that have distinct paintings from the ones in Altamira. Our guide told us that it is possible that the paintings we saw in the caves represent the family "coat of arms" or their symbol. It was amazing to have had this experience to see real cave paintings. Most of them were "mano en negativo" which means hand in negative. Prehistoric people would use crushed red stone to make a negative print of their hand. We also saw many paintings of deer as well as of bison and bulls. It was fascinating. Unfortunately, we were not able to take pictures inside the cave, but it was definitely an experience. Just a fun fact: the city of Puente Viesgo is popular with the fútbol players. Every weekend before a game of the Spanish National team, the whole team goes to the famous spa in this city...hmmmmm. :)

Puente Viesgo...it was raining all morning, but I still took a decent picture...I think.

Santillana del Mar
I have a new favorite city(well as many of you know I have many favorite things in Spain). Santillana is another amazing city in Spain. It is a medieval town from the 1400´s and the city hasn´t changed since then, literally. There are no modern buildings or stores, it still has old bars, small shops, etc. The city was a perfect example of a medieval town. One of my favorite things about Spain (which is true for all of Europe) is all the history that is still here and how you can see it within the buildings and cities you visit. Anyway, the church that is in Santillana, La iglesia de Santa Juana, is one of the stops along the Camino de Santiago (the pilgrimage trail of Santiago that passes through northern Spain). The church was small and humble, but the cloister was large and very green. After the visit to the church, Carmen (our wonderfully incredible director) had a surprise for us. We got to eat some authentic/traditional Cantabrian desserts: sobao and quesada. It is hard to explain what these desserts are like, but the sobao has a similar texture and taste as pound cake, but it is in the form of a thin rectangle and is not as sweet. Quesada has a circular shape and comes in all sizes. It is a type of custard dessert and very good. We only had a little bit of free time in Santillana so Emily and I just walked around and went into some of the small shops there. After a few hours in Santillana we headed to Comillas.
A medieval building that is now a hostel. :)







One of the many medieval streets we walked down.
Here's a view from Santillana. It is beautiful.
The church of Santa Juana, it is roman architecture.

View of the cloister. The flowers on the walls are so colorful!
A different view of the cloister. I had a lot of fun experimenting with my camera here.
In the middle of one of the streets there was a place where you can tie up your horse and they can drink water out of the trough. As you can see there are no horses.

Comillas
Comillas is more of a beach town than a historic town, but it does still have its history. The town was absolutely beautiful this weekend...I fell in love with it. Everywhere we walked the leaves would be all over the ground and the leaves that were still on the branches were of all shades of fall colors (my favorite time of the year). It was enchanting! Carmen took us on a mini tour to visit some historical places in Comillas. This town's most historic figure is a Marques; I'm sorry but I have completely forgotten his name. Anyway, this Marques lived in Comillas most of his life. He was born into a low-middle class family and when he was older he ended up having a business in transportation by sea which helped him gain prestige as well as a lot of money. He built a large mansion on top of a hill in Comillas for him, his wife and four children to live. Next to the mansion is a small church where the family attended. Eventually, the Marques had a mistress (which his wife knew about and so did everyone else in the town). To show his love and devotion to his mistress, the Marques asked Gaudi to build a home near where the mansion is. The home that Gaudi built is very much his style and magnificent as usual. The house was lived in by the mistress and at times by the Marques as well. Now if you were to walk from the mansion to the mistress' house it would be about a 2 minute walk. They were very close together which is what shocked me because of the time period when it happened (1800's).
View of part of the town of Comillas. In the background of the picture you can see the University that is named after the Marques.
The Marques' mansion.

Behind the house there is a bridge that leads from the back door into some gardens and a fountain. In front of the fountain there is a statue of Gaudi, sitting on a bench, contemplating. It is a very cool place. We had free time so I went walking around the city with a few other girls in my group and we eventually walked up a hill that overlooked one of Comillas gorgeous beaches. Enjoy the pictures!

View of the Marques' home with the church in the background.

Sheila, Megan and I standing in front of the house that Gaudi built. It is also called La casa de girasoles (The house of sunflowers) because the exterior is covered in sunflowers.

The chimney of the house Gaudi built.
I have the most wonderful people in my ISA group! Top: Rachel, Michael, Bottom: Emily, Sheila, Gaudi, Naomi & I.
The main plaza in Comillas. There was a beautiful golden retriever puppy running around.
I hope you will be able to see this picture clearly because it was one of my favorite discoveries. The signs are very medieval and each has one of the most religious cities written on them and how many km away the city is from Comillas. The top one is Rome, the second Jerusalem, the third Santiago de Compostela (the pilgrimage of Santiago) and the last Santo Toribio. Que guay!

Hope you enjoyed! Besos, Celeste

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