Meeting Mrs. Estefan in front of the bilderberg Parkhotel

After meeting Mrs. Estefan at the meet and greet with the conga bash Rotterdam 2007, I agreed to meet up with Jo, Stephen and David outside her hotel on Sunday the 9th at 10 am because I wanted to speak to her in Spanish and David wanted to give something to Frank or David.

I arrived a little before 10am and they came about 8 minutes later. We sat on the sidewalk on a cementy thing and waited for Mrs. Estefan to come out. A big van came and some suitcases were put in it and we had the feeling it was all the bands stuff. And yes at 10:45 am I think Mrs. Estefan and I think her people came out and were standing in front of the hotel with a suitcase and chatting a bit.

When Mrs. Estefan was just standing there fiddling with her suitcase I suddenly felt like somebody pushed me to walk up to her. I'm usually quite shy but this time I think I thought now or never...

I really wanted to talk to her in Spanish just a bit since I spoke English the night before although I had wanted to speak Spanish.... to thank her for doing the concert, which was amazing, I had so much fun.

So I walked up to her and said "desculpe" and a guy tried to say I shouldn't talk to her or something but she then said "No, no it's ok" and looked at me and came close. I think we shook hands, I don't even really remember (I was so nervous) and I said "quería agradecerle por el concierto, que fue estupendo. Me divertí mucho". She said in Spanish she was glad I liked it and I said "muchísimo".

She then said something in Spanish to me which I didn't expect cos I thought that that was it, so I wasn't paying enough attention to really understand, but I thought she said something like '" o you speak Spanish" so I told her that I study spanish/have studied (just for fun though at a small class in Rotterdam - and before in '96-2001 at college (Rotterdam and Costa Mesa)) and told her that I did because I used to sing her Spanish songs without knowing what it meant and I wanted to know - I was 12/13 at the time that I started liking old spanish songs like "me enamoré" and "no será facil".

Then I walked away and she saw David who was just walking back to Jo and Stephen after giving Frank or David something. So she said "hi david" (I think) and gave him a hug and then she saw Jo and Stephan as well and apparently knows them, or at least by face, so she said "do(n't) you want to take a picture with me" and they said they felt a little weird to bug her in her personal time that she wasn't on duty and she said it didn't matter that she was always on duty. So they said "ok" and they hugged and made pictures. I made a few pictures of Stephen and Mrs. Estefan with his camera which was funny because I didn't know where the button was to make a picture haha but it worked.

I didn't go up to her to take a picture because I had already spoken with her and bugged her enough already. But she said something like "come take a picture with me… after putting all that work into learning spanish..." :-0 so that was suuuupernice, she even posed with me again because I apparently had my eyes closed on the first picture. I had already said "muchas gracias" and was walking away towards Jo when she said "oh wait one more you had your eyes shut" and pulled me back to make another picture. I don't think you can find anyone in this business that is that nice.

I thanked her again, 'muchas gracias' and she said 'de nada' and she then even said I spoke Spanish well.

Like i wrote a few weeks back in a spanish excercise: Si hablára con Gloria Estefan, sería la persona más feliz del mundo! And I was.

And I can go back to class in January with my hed held high because I didn't only meet Mrs. Estefan I even spoke to her in Spanish!.