Tuesday 1 July 2008

Waiting For The Bus

Los Campeones returned to Madrid last night, and of course we had to go to see it. We had no idea what was going to happen, all we knew was that it would be a good idea to be at Plaza de Colón by about 8pm. As it happened, we were there at 7.30, along with a sizeable crowd, a big stage, big video screens and a perfectly adequate sound system.



We were entertained by several bands that we'd never heard of, and an enterprising dude was doing good business painting Spanish flags on peoples' faces - although it did look like he was using acrylic paint, which is a bugger to get off.





The team's plane touched down at 8pm, and after about fifteen minutes they set off on the slowest-ever bus trip from the airport - it took over an hour for them to reach Colón, but everyone was quite pleased when they did. The National Library of Spain sits on a corner of the Plaza, and these security guys on the roof got a pretty good view.



A few minutes before the actual arrival, the Spanish Air Force Aerobatics Team flew over our heads trailing yellow and red smoke.



Then finally, the bus arrived. In the photo below, do you see the yellow blob to the left of the kid in the blue t-shirt? That's the Cup! (Actually it might be Luis Aragones, but it's hard to tell from this distance).



Once again, a bloody fantastic experience: thank you Madrid, thank you Spain!

And I promise you, a complete change of topic tomorrow.

3 comments:

Erik Wirdheim said...

Keefieboy,

Must have been exciting - I almost can't believe the media reports that one million people turned up to celebrate.

I have also been stuck with this topic, albeit from a different angle - you might know which! ;-)

//Erik

Keef said...

So that's what a million people looks like! You might have seen me on the TV: I was the one waving the Spanish flag.

Jayne said...

We were in Hemingways (in the Hilton) for a pub quiz & it started to get very, very crowded. Quiz finished & we - a group of 6 - sat & tried to chat over 'one for the road'. The soccer came on & the atmosphere was electric. I'm no fan of the game but have to say that this match generated a whole heap of support from the Sandbox :-) It must've been well exciting for you Keefie, right on yer doorstep!