# Madrid Open 2009 Results and reports



## Erik (Jul 13, 2009)

Hey all, Hakan and me came back yesterday from Madrid. Results are not up yet but these are the first 3 on 3x3 plus some nice reports.
1. Erik 12.40
2. Doudou 13.25
3. Kanneti 13.27

We had a really great time in Spain! 
*Wednesday*
Left here on wednesday in my parent's car instead of the Smart since somehow the battery was dead :S, off to Frankfurt Hahn. Which is, instead of what the name implies, totally not near Frankfurt at all but like 150 km from it.
Anyway, last year Joël and me missed the flight to Frankfurt so we decided to go for safe this year, so Hakan already arrived here the day before. 
This is us at the airport waiting, we decided to do a little relay of all cubes we had. I believe we did it in about 7 minutes.






We had much fun at the airport waiting for 1.5 hours. At some point we were already in front of the gate where they were still boarding the previous flight. A couple together with their little baby was fascinated by our cubing and made pictures and stuff, but suddenly they realize the bus to the airplane already left! Luckily after some hassle with the guy with his walkie-talkie they could get on board still.
The flight then was quite smooth. I videotaped the landing and takeoff, which will be uploaded on youtube I think. 





During the flight.




Already above Spain as you can see.

The landing was a bit rough, but after we landed everyone suddenly started clapping... like srsly, dude wtf?? It's MENT to be that the airplane lands... on your ticket it says: *departure* and *arrival*, it's just the pilots job...
We got through the doors and immediately we were welcomed by Javi and Ignacio (Nacho) Soto who I already met at EC and who were very kind to let us stay at their place. We went to their home by bus:




As we already knew from last year, the Spanish have weird eating times. They would have lunch at 4 and dinner at 11 sometimes. We prepared a bit on it and enjoyed a nice dinner with things I don't know the name of at all but it was good.
We spend the evening with playing chess, cubing, cubing, cubing and chatting a lot. Hakan was learning Spanish like crazy. He's amazing at learning new languages.

*Thursday*

Thursday was tourist day. It was one day before the competition started so Javi and Nacho showed us around Madrid. The metro system is superb in Madrid (only downside is that EVERYTHING is only in Spanish) and it gets to to everywhere you want. Another advantage of the metro is that it is cool under the ground  it was quite a shock for Hakan and me to be in 36 degrees celcius weather all the time. Luckily we got used to it quite fast, the heat is actually much easier to bare that in Holland where the humidity level is much much higher. 
We first went to the big park in Madrid where we sat cubing in the grass, chatting, listening to music from Nacho's iPhone.




Nacho




Hakan

Then it was time for some lunch (Dutch time of lunch), so we went from the park to a BK. There were many many tourists in Madrid, we even heard some people speaking Dutch. grrr, Dutch people everywhere, wether you go to Frankfurt or Madrid, they are always there! In the BK there were some Americans too, we tried to get their attention by speaking loud in American English (DUDE, like SRSLY, wtf, you know like... really, dude!, yeah I know like.. totally you know?) but they didn't care.

After some whoppers and relays it was time to be touristic and go downtown Madrid. I finally saw some stuff I saw last year too, I was already doubting if it was the same Madrid as last year...




A big square where there were actually pictures carved out in stone of naked women on the wall. 

After that we headed for some store with computers and TV"s and stuff, no idea why we went there actually ^^.




A sign we saw when going to that store.







in the store, we found some Macbooks with internet connection. Of course we started cubing. Surprisingly nobody told us to go away, they must've sold quite some Macbooks because of us that day. 



Downtown Madrid, probably one of the most crowded areas there.

We finished the day with eating Pizza (duh!), ice cream and making people crazy with our cubing. 





*rest will follow soon*


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## rahulkadukar (Jul 13, 2009)

Congrats once again Erik, did you win the 5x5x5 or Megaminx


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## pjk (Jul 13, 2009)

Sounds like a nice trip. Good job with the pics, and the report.



> by speaking loud in American English (DUDE, like SRSLY, wtf, you know like... really, dude!, yeah I know like.. totally you know?) but they didn't care.


Haha, yeah, there are lots of dumb Americans.


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