Sunday, April 6, 2025
All good things must eventually come to an end, therefore today we started the long journey home to California after three wonderful months coaching the Gijón Mariners and living in the beautiful Principality of Asturias, Spain.
We finished 95% of our packing before going to bed last night and were up due to the excitement well before our 6:00 a.m. alarm went off.
A shower and a few last minute things to rearrange and we were ready to go.
The ever reliable Mariners' Team President, Kike Prado Alonso, was at our apartment at precisely 7:00 a.m. to whisk us away to the Asturias Airport about 30 minutes away for the first leg of our two flights to the Los Angeles International Airport, a.k.a., LAX.
I can not agree with him more
I truly believe that the more one travels, the more one understands his fellow man and woman's lot in life and learns other ways to get the job done as individuals, as cultures and as countries.
Oft times I find that these new travel experiences show me that there are better ways to do things than the way we are doing, during our current state of affairs in the USA.
Sometimes, not.
These 13 seasons of living in various cities and coaching American football with clubs based in France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland have all given me the chance to become a traveler, not just a tourist.
I cannot begin to count the number of generous people we now call dear friends due to these experiences nor the insights and lessons that they have taught us via there example and generosity in opening up their lives and homes to us.
It has been a truly wonderful and rewarding set of retirement experiences.
Thank you Rick Scott for making me promise to coach in EuroBall with you on that fateful car ride to Agoura H.S. for our C.I.F.-Southern Section playoff game back in 2004.
Saying "Adios y Gracias" to Kike
at the Asturias Airport was not easy
The great and kind leader of our Mariners got us to a near empty airport with no problems.
We checked our two large bags easily and received our boarding passes from a pleasant, outgoing young lady that was the Iberia Airlines representative.
We were about to walk away when she asked if we wanted to check in our two carry-on bags for free all the way to LAX.
ABSOLUTELY!
Traveling hands free for free is always a plus in our minds.
Our 45 minute flight to Madrid
was on time but we were early
Only one thing to do, have a light breakfast in the Asturias Airport.
One last café con leche and pastry before leaving Asturias was the right call.
Art work by Gate 3
Just before boarding, I casually perused our boarding passes and noted that on our 11 hour flight from Madrid to Los Angeles, Laurie and I were now scheduled to share the same seat.
I mean, I love her and all, but this was not a good idea.
Laurie loves window seats and I like aisle seats. The seat in question was indeed hers. We had jointly made the decision to sit apart on our second flight so that I could have more leg room in an exit row aisle seat but did not have the window that she loves.
As we had a long layover in Madrid and we about to board our first flight, we decided to deal with it in the capital city.
As fate would have it, our same Iberia Airlines Rep was scanning out tickets at Gate 3 and we quickly and calmly told her of our issue. She was apologetic and seemed to want to abandon her post to rectify the situation right now!
We asked her to relax, we would get it corrected once we arrived in Madrid and we proceeded to board our plane.
It was a little plane
So small that the overhead bins could only hold backpacks, people were handing over their carry-on bags to handlers who loaded them into the cargo hole.
When we arrived in Madrid, all of those carry-ons were lined up on the tarmac waiting for their owners to retrieve them. Ours were not there of course as they had been checked straight through to LAX.
Were we flying a black ops
military mission too?
As we settled into our seats and awaited our fellow passengers finding their seats, one of the flight attendants came up to me and said, "Señor Contreras, esto es para usted."
She handed me a new boarding pass with the correct exit row seat for the Madrid to LAX flight. Our amiable Iberia Airlines Rep had gone above and beyond!
GRACIAS!
Travel, for the love of God,
TRAVEL!
I find the visual lines of
the Madrid Airport fascinating
Blue support pillars changing into green ones was pleasaing to the eye.
Then green turned into lime
We found Real Madrid store that needed
to battle the much larger FC Barcelona
store we saw in this same airport last
Thursday when returning from Marrakech
We had a two hour and 20 minute layover in Madrid. We cleared Spanish passport control easily and boarded the airport metro that easily got us from the main airport to the international terminal without any problems.
Near these orange pillars
we stopped for lunch
Ordering and enjoying one last jamón ibérico and cheese bocadillo seemed like the right thing to do.
And it was.
Breakfast in Asturias, lunch in Madrid. I'm sensing a pattern.
NICE!
This is exactly why I usually take two photos of these message boards but not today. Our 1:00 p.m. flight to Los Angeles was on time.
Boarding proceeded slowly due to it being a full flight on a rather large plane.
No problem,
I HAD LEG ROOM!
And cool Flag of Asturias socks too!
It made the 11 hour flight MUCH more endurable to say the least.
We were back in the USA
Being able to skip the long, long passport control lines at LAX because we had made the effort to get our Global Entry cards last year was a huge plus!
With Global Entry it took us literally no more than five seconds to have our face scanned and be moved along to baggage claim.
AWESOME!
Not so awesome, as Laurie's carry-on bag somehow did not arrive with us. Lost luggage forms filled out with the promise that they would deliver our missing bag to our home in Camarillo. Fingers crossed.
We were back home and this seemed like a small problem that hopefully will be rectified soon.
LAX traffic was light
We awaited Michael and Mary who would pick us up for the easy ride home to Casa Contreras in Camarillo.
We stopped at Camarillo's
iconic Mexican restaurant for dinner
A #2 Combo, por favor
One chili relleno, one cheese enchilada and a beef taco with rice and beans. Top it off with Diet Coke and . . .
Life was GOOD!
Breakfast in Asturias, then lunch in Madrid and now dinner in Camarillo. I felt like a modern day Anthony Bourdain.
While we were globe trotting, that important Serie A Eastern Conference makeup game between the Terrassa Reds (5-1-1) and Abadalona Dracs (6-1) was being played in Barcelona with the winner taking home the Eastern Conference's crown and its accompanying #1 conference playoff seed.
No contest, Dracs won easily
The Final 2025 Serie A Standings
As always, remember that in all European sports, standings are listed in this order: Wins-Ties-Losses.
The Serie A Playoff Semifinals
are finally set
Eastern Conference #2 seed
Terrassa Reds (5-1-2)
at
Western Conference #1 seed
Las Rozas Balck Demons (8-0)
Western Conference #2 seed
Osos Rivas (4-4)
at
Eastern Conference #1 seed
Badalona Dracs (7-1)
These two Semifinal games will be played next weekend with the winners meeting in Spanish Bowl XXXI on May 3rd or 4th.
The four teams left standing have varied Spanish Bowl histories.
The Badalona Dracs have been to 18 Spanish Bowls, winning 11 with their most recent title coming in 2021.
The Las Rozas Black Demons have been five Spanish Bowls, all in the last five seasons having won the last two.
The Osos Rivas have won two of their five trips to the Spanish Bowl. Their last title game win came in 2022.
This is the Terrassa Reds first Spanish Bowl game. They did win the Serie B Championship game in 2024 to get promoted to Serie A this season.
Finally on the Serie A football scene, I was sent this link below by the Mariners of the newspaper interview that we did before leaving Gijón. It was published today, but you may need to bring your Spanish to English dictionary.
Again,
KEEP TRAVELING!
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