ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Let’s be honest – people were pretty disappointed with the cloud cover. But I talked to dozens of people moments after totality ended, and this one guy was my favorite.

He traveled all the way from Madrid, Spain and had read books as a child about this comic book hero in Europe who would block out the sun. And he came here to experience what we all experienced Monday.

“It was great!” the Spaniard exclaimed. “I dreamed about this my whole life, since I was a little kid.”

“What was your experience like?” I asked a woman who was at Parcel 5 with her daughter.

“My experience – this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It totally shocked me,” she said.

“How did you talk your mom into coming here?” I asked her daughter.

“Honestly, once I heard about it from work I literally came home and told her about it and we made our custom t-shirts together,” she said.

“Once in a lifetime for sure,” said one young woman who was at Parcel 5 with her twin sister. “I mean just seeing the whole world go dark for three minutes, I don’t think I’ll ever see that again”

“I do wish Mother Nature cleared up the sky a bit,” her twin said. “But still it was a really cool experience and I’m glad I got to experience it.”

“What was the experience like?” I asked Kristin Cummings who moved here from Geneva.

“A little disappointing,” Cummings admitted.

“The clouds reminded me of that movie,” said one woman after totality. “Moses parted the Red Sea and all those clouds. That’s what it actually looked like.”

“When the whole city went dark it was amazing,” said Julia Abelev, who came here from New York City with her family.

“It was surreal, like from a sci-fi movie. Even with these clouds it was worth it to come all the way from New York City to here,” her husband said. “Thank you Rochester for your hospitality to welcome us here for this once in a lifetime event. But in ’45, we’re going to Florida to see another eclipse!”