Sunday, June 12 "Campeones - Betis wins the Copa del Rey"

A historic season for Betis ended in the early morning hours of Sunday, but the day began for us on Saturday morning at 7am. Rising from a restless sleep we made our way to the Santa Justa train station for a breakfast among beticos at the train station cafeteria. We were scheduled for a 9:15 a.m. charter AVE, one of several double AVEs (literally two trains stuck together) to take 30,000 to 40,000 fans to Madrid to see the final game. Tickets were hard to come by, and by the time we purchased them there was only first class available. So we spent 180€ apiece for our train tickets plus 60€ for seats in the upper deck of the final. Adding in the meals and other expenses we were looking at 300€ per person in what we hoped would be a championship. Or as I stated many times, better be a championship if we were spending this kind of money. Some 24 hours after we woke up we arrived in Santa Justa as champions and with a season in Champions League to look forward to. It was well worth the money, the energy and everything else we lost along the way.