London

The London trip

On Friday 15th, at 15:00, we were all at Madrid Barajas airport checking in our suitcases because we were going to a trip to London to play against Staines FRC. The long wait plus the problems we encountered were worth the wait because after the 2 hour flight to Luton Airport we had embarked on a heavenly adventure. The hotel was quite good. After a short walk, we strolled into a Pizza Hut. There, we had a feast. The salad bar was emptied immediately. Then came the pizzas. Crunchy, tasty and good in every way, they disappeared off their plates in a split second. The ice cream machine had to be refilled twice!

That night the coaches split us into 2 groups. One of them would sleep in a ginormous 24 bed room. The other, including me, slept in a 8 bed room with a bathroom. Everyone except me and one of my friends, M.C, left the room during the night.

The next morning we went for a stroll to the park so that our appetite was 100% ready when we came back for breakfast.
 
In the bus there was immediate chatter as we arrived at The Reeves football and rugby pitch. There, we rapidly changed and trotted out onto the rugby pitch. Our opponents looked bigger and stronger. I wasn´t playing in the first half so I took out my camera. Our team struggled to score but when they did, they wantede more. The first half ended in 0-22 for the Cisneros. I played in the second half in which, I must say, a giant player from the other team jumped on top of me instead of tackling me and my shoulder cracked. Yikes! Even though we scored one try to their four or five, we still won 12-29 for us.

Our Half-scrum passing the ball as a scrum ends

During the 3rd time, we had meat, potatoes, peas, carrots and broccoli with gravy (of course). After that came a yummy apple pie with vanilla cream. After the meal, we had a series of contests such as "who eats their mars bar the fastest" or "which team can get most Maltesers into their mouthes on a tape measure".

Both teams' family snapshot

 We lost all of them, but we do have the excuse of never doing it before. Then the Staines captain made a speech and M.C translated it to the players on our team that didn't speak fluent English.The captains gave each other presents (everyone got a Staines badge). After that, the Staines 1st senior team played.

The Staines 1st senior team doing their pre-match training

We watched some and then we piled back into the bus. We stopped at Twickenham stadium (the world's Rugby Cathedral) on our way back there was a great hulabaloo to get into the gift shop first. You can't imagine the things you could find in there. Shirts, balls, salt and pepper pots, England rugby team water bottles and much much much much more.

That afternoon (and well into the night) we had a 4 hour trek around London, stopping at Buckingham palace, the Big Ben and the London Eye. After that, we were very hungry so we stopped at a KFC.

That night nobody moved from their beds.

On Sunday we made our suitcases and left them at the hotel for a bus to come and pick them up. We then went for another stroll around London stopping at the Marble arch, Hamleys, Oxford Circus and Picadilly Circus. We then went back to the Marble Arch where the bus was waiting. It took us to the airport. There, even though the boarding gate would close at 18:00, someone had the bright idea of going to a Macdonald's. The result: we all had to pour our chips into our empty paper cups and run to the gate. In the plane, we finally relaxed in our seats.

 Read the section in the centre:
http://www.stainesrugby.co.uk/v5/base.php 

 For safety reasons I will not write the full names of players, coaches, etc.