_Madonna!

I could go on about what we did that day, but who cares? Bottom line was Day 3 was the Madonna concert.  The early part of the day was a blur of more, eating at Fuddruckers (yes a little slice of heaven for those of us who don't get to dine on good burgers for long lengths of time) and getting ready for the big concert.

Six o'clock pm found me grabbing all my make up, accessories and my "madonna outfit" and claiming one half of the room as my "getting ready for Madonna area".  John, the most awesome husband in the world, surprised me by packing my Immaculate collection CD of Madonna hits and the DVD portable player and turned on the music while I got ready with my favorite Madonna tunes blasting in the background.  He also fixed me captain and cokes and kept Bruce out of my hair so I could jam, dance and make ready for the special evening. Getting ready was so much fun with such a playful understanding hubby.  Have I mentioned how much I love him lately?

I was in my element. Dancing, singing, swaying to the tunes, drinking my drinks and putting on way too much makeup, way too many accessories, wearing the most ridiculous sized heels and the cutest black dress to get me into the groove and ready for the concert.  My heels were too high, I didn't care. I looked like a throwback from the 80's! And I was happy about it, I loved feeling the music and feeling sexy and sassy and knowing that it didn't matter what I wore or what I looked like, tonight it was about the music and the enjoyment I got out of it.  Tonight was Madonna and when has she ever given a rats ass about what anyone thinks of her? Tonight I didn't care either. Haha I love you Madonna!     Finally, the baby sitter arrived, my drinks were gone, and we were as ready as we were going to be. We said our goodbyes to Bruce and headed to meet our friends Jennifer and Britten at the restaurant in our hotel.  We met with them and had a little dinner and the guys proceeded to have many drinks as they claimed that they would need them to be able to attend a "Madonna" concert. Yeah whatever, they would go onto enjoy and respect the show she put on as much as the Madonna lovers in the house.

It was getting close to 9pm now, (her show was due to start at that time) and I was getting antsy that we needed to be on our way.  When we got outside we saw that the que for a taxi was rather long.  Our guys being the problem solvers that they are decided to meet the taxi's way before they hit the que area and secured a quick ride for us to the venue.  Within five minutes we were there, we had arrived!!!!!!!!

_As we bought Gold Circle tickets, we had a separate entrance and were right up front to the stage. We were on the left side of it and though we didn't have actual seats, we found it to be a pretty good place to see the show. It would have been easy to move closer to the center but the night was hot and none of us could imagine being stuck between tons of sweaty, smelly, people so we made do with where we were at and waited for Madonna to come on.  And waited, and waited and waited. As I'm sure most of you have heard by now the show was around 90 minutes late.....I think every song by Michael Jackson was played but honestly and truly I don't remember caring that much. You know why? Cuz my husband and my friends are awesome!  Yes, we booed along with everyone else when the show was late getting started but mostly we just hung out, laughed and did what you do when it's hot out and you're waiting for a show to start. That's right, more beer!

_Finally, 90 minutes late, the Material girl came out and all was immediately forgiven of her late start.  Madonna was on fire and came out with full energy, full costumes and and a show that killed!  Literally.  It was as all Madonna shows are, controversial, sexy, violent full of energy, amazing stage scenes, the most entertaining dancers and so on.  After all these years Madonna still knows how to rock the house and bring everyone to their feet and enjoy a good freaking show. If you want a play by play review, google it. All I know is I danced, I sang, I think I even cried when just like prayer came on and the whole audience was singing along, swaying, hands in the air once again like all those years ago....

The night was so hot and yet she and her dancers came out in full costumes, did every single song with full energy and passion and gave all of their selves to the show.  No one seemed to be slacking or being beat down by the heat.  You saw the sweat pouring off all of them and yet they continued dancing to all their songs and moving and grooving to the beats and giving us hard core Madonna fans everything we hoped for and more in this concert. Everything.

I loved every single freaking minute of this concert and was sad when it ended. This concert did not disappoint and I hope you will enjoy my favorite pics of the night below. Madonna at 53 years old still had boys mooning over her, and still has women wanting to look like her.  She made me forget that I am 45 years old and no longer the spring chicken that I was when I first fell in love with her and her music. She also made me realize once again that it doesn't matter how old you are,  that you are in charge of what you look like, and how you want to present yourself to the world. Yes, we are getting old but we can go down fighting, and we can be hot and sexy and limber...no matter what age.  Thank you for reminding me of that, I love you Madonna. I love that I loved you at 18 and love that all these years later I still love and sing and dance to your music. I love even more that at your age you have the grace, confidence and the children (her kids were dancers in the show too!) to help you celebrate your longevity in the music industry.

It was a wonderful concert, a wonderful weekend and I will hold it dear to my heart just as I did the blonde ambition tour all those years ago.  Peace out Madonna, see you in another twenty years! 

And now, what you all have been waiting for.....Madonna!  Well pictures of her show anyway, not in any order and some blurry, but here are they are, enjoy! I know we did!

(And by the way, song playing in my head right now is "don't go for second best baby put yourself to the test you know you know you've got to make him express how you feel and maybe then you'll know his love is real....express yourself! )

_Day 2
 
I just realized that I forgot to mention that we were on this trip with a group sort of.  A wonderful lady named Donna set up the Madonna packages and we bought our concert tickets and hotel packages through her travel agency.  There were others in the group but me and my friend Jennifer were the only ones who bought along their men.  For me it was John and Bruce and for her, her hubby Britten.  We did the nights out, the safari tour and Madonna concert with the Martins.  We have found them to be an amazingly fun couple with a child a little older than Bruce, but what we love best about them is their easy manner, and the fact that like us we are all spontaneous and just go with the flow.  We are happy to have met them and are glad they are in Bangalore the whole time we're here:).

Back to day 2. A deep sleep massage of one and half hours, and hanging out by the pool....that was John's first half of Day 2 in "Abubobbi".  I was determined that though this trip was supposed to be "about me" that John and Bruce would have a great time too.  So day 2, John headed for his massage and Bruce and I cabbed it to Marina Mall, which was really big and had quite a few shops to choose from. The ride out to the mall was a good fifteen or twenty minutes away and the scenery was spectacular. The sky was so blue and the buildings looked like paintings with a beautiful back drop of endless blue skies. Along the route to the mall was also Cornishe beach with it's white sands and true blue waters. The beach looked so clean and so inviting, until the driver told me that the temperatures get as high as 100 degrees or more! Pass.  But my how beautiful it looked and I know that in the fall months the temperature will drop and the beach will be something to see and explore at another time.

So on to Marina mall where Bruce and I stayed till 1:30pm. We had fun, bought quite a few things that I knew I wouldn't find in Bangalore and scoped out the eateries and was so jazzed to find that they had a Fuddruckers.  Couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and tell John! But first today was about shopping for me and so shopping I did and Bruce was the best little sidekick. The hours went by quickly and all too soon it was time for us to head back to the hotel where we found John drinking mojitos at the pool. He looked so yummy in his sunglasses and big smile lounging, enjoying the scenery and cold drink.  We closed out his tab and headed to the hotel room to get ready for our Desert safari tour! We knew it involved sand, camel rides, belly dancing and food.  And within fifteen minutes our ride had arrived and we were on our way!

Jennifer set up this portion of the trip. We hadn't realized that the safari tour was in Dubai, so our trip was almost two hours away to get to the destination. Not sure on the timing because the ride went by quickly and was an interesting time the whole way there.  We even got to stop at a CONVENIENCE STORE!  Britten was even kind enough to get out and buy us some snacks which included a drumstick icecream cone for me.  Heaven!  Seriously, I was in heaven.  I mean a convenience store? We just don't have those in Bangalore.  We all started giggling and were just giddy thinking that here all things were possible!

After the convenience store, we headed to the first stop on the tour.  It was an area of sand dunes which you could rent sand dune vehicles and ride them for a bit.  At this point I had not acclimated to the heat outside and decided I would sit back and watch. As did Jennifer. We hung out in the breezy watching area and enjoyed the scenes of our boys...., well, being boys!   Here are a couple of pics.

Now came what was probably one of the most fun times we have ever had in a vehicle.  We were loaded into our landcruiser with our driver who drove out to this amazing large area of sand dunes.  Without warning he said here we go and all of a sudden we were cruising the sandy dunes.  We were driving up and down and sometimes sideways!  Our feet were airbourne at times and it was more fun than any roller coaster I have been on.  What was hard was watching the vehicle in front of us knowing that we were soon going to be doing the same and trying not to worry that we would roll or crash or sink!  Gosh it was FUN and exciting and we can't wait to go back.  Our friend Britten video recorded a snipped of our ride and you can check it out on his blog
http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php#


Yes that's me in the background yapping away, as we all know  I can never just shut it, even when I'm scared to death! Will work on that....

Thanks for recording this Britten, Bruce LOVES watching it over and over.....

In between the dune bashing, our driver would stop in some more sandy areas where all were encouraged to get out and take pics.  After the dune bashing, we finally arrived to our camp site. This is where the camel rides were, along with Henna painting, shisha smoking, and two dance shows  Unfortunately we didn't do the camel rides as we had planned to come back to it but forgot, but the rest of the evening was lovely and we had a full wonderful desert safari tour.  Remind me to tell you about our driver and his stories that he shared on the evening ride home.  Also how he drove us out of the desert with the lights out.....no worries it was a full moon and we were the first ones out so we made it ok, but what an adventure it truly was. Thank you to Jennifer who set this up for us, it was one of the highlights of our trip! Stay tuned for Day 3, Madonna!