¡Vamos España! (horns and vuvuelas honking)

The Mad hostal, our second hostal in Madrid was better than the night
before, but still towards the bottom of our hostal list. We dropped
our bags off and headed out for second day tour in Madrid. Our first
stop was a market we read about in one of our informative travel
books. We wandered the outdoor market and enjoyed the atmosphere in
Madrid making a few purchases which would be useful later in the the day, a red t shirt.

After some shopping we began the museum leg of Spain with the museum
of Reina Sofia, which houses Guernica by Picasso, and art from many
famous cubist and surrealist painters like Dali, Miro, Gris, and again
Picasso. We all throughly enjoyed the exibits, and I especially enjoyed
the museum because I could finally see lots of the artwork I saw in
textbooks and online throughout my career of Spanish classes. For me,
Guernica, Picasso´s painting and reflection on the Spanish civil war,
was extremely impressive. The Painting is huge and takes up an entire
room. I felt like I completed a pilgrimage that every Spanish teacher
should complete when I saw it in person. I simply stared at it for a good 10 minutes.

When we finished at the Reina Sofia, we grabbed a quick lunch, and
then headed to the Prado for the second major art stop in Madrid. The
Prado is another huge museum like the Louvre, housing more classic
paintings by Goya, Velazquez, El Greco, and Rembrandt. We made a stop
at all the masterpieces we could remember from our history classes
like, Las Meninas, Saturno devouring his child, The Naked Maga, El
Grecos self-portrait, and more. This left us overwhelmed with art, and
exhausted from the crowds. We walked back to our hostal for a mid day
siesta to rest up for what the rest of the night had in store, the
world cup final between Spain and Holland.

I want to first say that ever since the day began the atmosphere in
Madrid was exciting and contagious. From the our first walk from one
hostal to the next we saw almost everyone wearing Red, lots of people
wearing the Spanish flag, and people in complete preparation for the
nights game. We decided to walk to find a bar to watch the game a
little over an hour before game time. After looking around we found a
relativley small cafe/bar to watch the game at and took a sit. Within
half an our the place was packed and all of Madrid was ready to enjoy the
game. We watched the entire game in the small bar full of locals and it became very
intense towards the end. Spain dominated possesion during the game but
it seemed like Holland still got better scoring chances. The game went
into overtime which created even more tension, but in the second
overtime period Iniesta scored a great goal with only a few minutes
remaining, and Spain went on to a victory. The party in the streets of
Madrid began after the game and this was an amazing party to be a part
of. The streets were filled with people, blowing vuvuzuelas, honking
the car horns, reving the engines of their cars and motorcycles,
police playing their sirens, and most of all people rejoicing singing and celebrating
the Spainish victory. We walked the streets and joined in the
celebrations. Everyone joined in, we saw entire families including
young children roaming the streets after midnight rejoicing in the
Spainish victory. There were people dancing in fountains, crowding the
streets, and we even saw guys taking the muffler off their 4-wheeler
so they could rev the engine louder. Even the day after as I write
this blog entry, we see people who are obiviously still celebrating at
3:00 pm the next day. Spain is the world cup champion, and the whole
country feels the joy of victory.

The newspaper the morning after the victory is filled with stories of
the game and team unifying Spain, which is currently in turmoil with a
struggling economy, and the Catalonya region(Barcelona) protesting for autonomy
and even independance. Experiencing the game and the country during
the victory is something none of us will ever forget.

On our final day here we chose to take a day of rest in the Retiro
Gardens in Madrid, sitting in the shade and walking through the
gardens. Some highlights include the large lake in the middle with row
boats and huge carp and turtles swimming at the surface looking for food, the
only statue of Satan in the world, the statue of the fallen angel, an
impressive rose garden, and the glass palace. The park is another
surreal place for us to rest, and for me to compose the last 2
entries of the blog. Tonight we will take a night train to Lisbon, the
final stop on our race around the world, and a chance at a million
dollars. Let's hope we end with a nice hostal experience.