Ok so I lied.

I had tons to write about yesterday and I wanted to just bombard you all with blog posts about my big weekend and how I was feeling about everything. But again I was thwarted by my lack of internet and when I did have internet I was talking with people back home because I needed to desparately. Oh well, you are at my mercy (Buahahahahahha evil wizard of oz esque laugh).

Ok let me tell you about the Real Madrid game. It was sort of a last minute thing that my friends and I planned haphazardly because magically we all had time off. So we got tickets for 45 euro(!) and made our way to the train station to buy tickets to Madrid. The frist time we went there was mass confusion over whether the bus or the trian would be the better option and we spun our wheels for a while and ended up buying nothing. Once we went home and did some appropriate online research, it was clear that the train was the right choice - little did we know what awaited us.

Let me take a little break in this story to say that Madrid gives me hives. Much love to my friends studying there but I could never do it. Too much noise, too many people, too big, too much everything. So anxiety level for this trip was a little high, but luckily we were planning on spending the afternoon before the game in the Retiro park so a little sunshine and grass between my toes would help dissipate my ogida. Train ride went pretty smoothly and the metro ride was fine but really long. I would trade the cleanliness of the Madrid metro for the dingier and crime riddled New York subway anyday. We made it to Retiro and had a splendid afternoon lounging, eating bocadillos, and doing cartwheels.

Cut to GAME TIME. We had to take the metro again and this time every stop brought with it more sweaty/ already slightly intoxicated Real Madrid fans with no sense of personal space. Also not conducive to Maxie making balloon hats for the game -people can be so insensitive sometimes. Every stop I said- oh I guess these people have to wait for the next train. No. No they didn't. They just kept packing in until I was pressed against one of the rails with my butt in some poor old man's face ( I guess it's one way to make friends in a new city). Once everyone started to get off I rejoiced and went to steal a seat. But alas this was our stop too- duh. So we mosey-ed on with all the fanatics, went to the official store to buy some gear ( see FB pics with scarves), and Maxie lovingly bought me a soda to counter my low blood sugar and consequent crankiness.

We got to our seats just in time. Oh and Ps the game was against Tenerife so no one was that concerned about how this game would go. The people next to us were Tenerife fans and liked to sing the Tenerife song under their breath at tense moments. The man in front of us preferred to smoke a pipe. Real Madrid also thinks it is a GREAT idea to give small children souped up foghorns that you blow into. Wow - someone in marketing really took their time thinking that one through. Anyway the first half was pretty boring because the Tenerife defense was pretty tight. When I didn't know what was happenning, I just followed the lead and screamed when all the drunk bros around me did. Second half, Real Madrid dominated - thanks in part to my favorite player Iker Casillas ( who's dating Miss Spain - no big). Luisa and I spent most of the game hating on Cristiano Ronaldho and how he wears Ed Hardy. We won( duh) and got back on the metro with all the other happy people. We made lots of friends in the train station with our scarves - old men, tweens, security guards, etc We were in demand and also just so excited that Spaniards were talking to us out of their own accord.

This is where the good times end. We got on the train with our balloon hats and parafanalia and bags of delicious fast food. We even sat in the right seats. the conductor comes by and we hand him our tickets - the same ones we had used with no problem on the way there. The conductor mumbles something about carnet joven and gives us a dirty look. Whatever. Maxie then engages him in a conversation about what the problem is. We bought our tickets using the machine and we selected the joven option because we are, indeed joven. We were prompted to enter a number which we interpreted as our age. Apparently, there is a special youth card that you need to have to get this 4 euro discount. Shouldn't the machine have noted some error when all of us entered our card number as "20"or "21." Maxie explained all of this to the conductor and asked if we could pay the difference - which we were all willing to do. This jerk was like "no you can't these tickets that you have don't exist - you need to buy all new tickets." He waved his hand over our useless tickets like he was a jedi master- very " These aren't the droids you're looking for." Maxie continued to try to reason with him and he spouted us all sorts of platitudes like " Forget what the computer said " and " Would you like to buy 1 ticket or 3 tickets? because i will charge you 3 times over." Uh no I don't think so sir - this is not my first time at the rodeo. And clearly this man did not know who my señora was. Paquita will find you and end you. Period. El fin. It became clear that he was talking down to us 1) because we were a group of young girls and 2) because we were a group of young american girls. He turned around smugly and tried to get the whole train to laugh at us and assured us that no matter who we talked to we would never get our money back. he even took the time to write - Didn''t present carnet joven on each of our receipts. Gosh he's precious.

Again - whatever. We paid up because clearly this man had nothing better to do than extort helpless people. but ooo were we mad. Luisa called the perp a cabrón and we laughed for 2 hours straight about the crisis and what he could possibly be using the money for. I couldn't wait to get home and tell Paquita so that the reign of terror could commence. I animatedly told her every detail and how this man basically stole our money and her response was....

Oh. I guess you'll have to buy fewer beers this week.