Baa Baa

HOLA FROM SPAIN!!

So I left Springfield at 1pm on Sunday, flew to DFW where I had a layover (spent most of my time at a taco & tequila bar) then boarded around 5:15 for Madrid. They fed us immediately and my tortellini was pretty good for airplane food. The in-flight movie was Eat, Pray, Love (great movie, but didn't watch it). I instead chose to have 2 mini bottles of wine as a nightcap since I forgot Dramamine.

I was jolted awake about 4 hours into the flight from turbulence. The captain turned on the seatbelt light and I just couldn't go back to sleep! Finally after about an hour and a half I managed to get comfortable again...oh I had a row all to myself by the way. My watch was set to Madrid time, so I knew it was 9am when I woke up again.

We were served breakfast and were supposed to land at 10am; however, there was a lot of traffic coming in to Madrid so we circled out in the mountains (yes, there are snow-covered MOUNTAINS in Spain) a few times. We finally landed around 10:30 all the way out in a satellite terminal of sala 4. We had to be at sala 1. Keep in mind this is the biggest airport I've ever been to in my LIFE and I've been to quite a few airports...

We're following the "Equipaje" (baggage) signs and it leads us down an escalator and on to an underground tram. We rode the tram for about 5 minutes then it stopped and we got off at the actual sala 4. We got our passports stamped and finally reached the baggage claim...you know where we go from there right? ADUANA.

Let me just say THANK GOD I was with a group of about 9 girls from my DFW flight. We were all standing around looking lost and confused at aduana because we weren't sure if we had anything to claim (I had brought a few bottles of wine from the US). The security guards ushered us away and kept saying no so we walked out of a gate and completely by-passed CUSTOMS. I wasn't about to go back and correct their mistake.

So we are all loaded down with at least 4 bags a piece and have to find a BUS to take us to sala 1. A BUS. Not a tram, not a skylink, a BUS that drove on a ROAD. 20 minutes later and all out of breath, we arrive at sala 1 only to be lost again. We didn't need to check in, so we finally figured we should go down a level to "Llegadas" (arrivals). Luckily we ran into the ISA program director with a sign while there. Unfortunately we had to wait for the next bus to take us to the hotel which wasn't arriving until 2pm...it was noon.

When I FINALLY arrived at Hotel Nacional in the museum district my roommate walked right up to me and we met for the first time (non-Facebook). I followed her to our room and let's just say it's interesting...I'm glad she was here first to figure out all of the oddities because I'm not sure what I would do. First off, you have to insert your key by the door to turn on the electricity in the room (and we are in an extremely modern hotel). Second, the controls for the blinds are by her side of the bed as a button...no drawstring blinds here folks. And third, shower curtains simply don't exist. The shower has half a wall of textured glass, but the rest is open to the bathroom!

Hill and I walked around Madrid (the wrong way) for a while and she found a pre-paid phone. I'm not sure if I'll even get one yet, I'll probably always be with her so until I need one I'll just do without. That was quite an adventure...our first experience speaking Spanish with a non-English speaker! We did a lot better than we both thought we would :)

We had a city bus tour at 6 and got to see where we're going tomorrow and where we should go tomorrow when we're on our own. I plan on going to the Reina Sofia Museo which holds Picasso's greatest work of art, The Guernica. If you know me, you know I LOVE Pablo Picasson (and most other artists as well). We will get to see original works by El Greco, Goya, and Velasquez tomorrow at the Prado Museo. We also get to tour 10% of the royal palace.

After the city tour I can honestly compare Madrid to New York City. The foot traffic in certain areas was so similar to NYC it was crazy! The shops and Starbucks and McDonald's on every corner is also typical NYC. Our guide said Madrid has about 6 million people (NYC has 8 million) but Madrid has a lot more land area. I'm really excited to chill in some tapas bars in Puerta del Sol or Plaza Mayor tomorrow afternoon.

For lunch I had a bocadillo de calamares and for dinner Hill and I went to a Spanish restaurant close to our hotel. After struggling with our Spanish while ordering, the mesero began to speak a little English to help us out. He ended up describing on of the items on the menu by saying "it's not a pig but...baa baaa"...we were able to get that he meant "lamb". We had a good laugh over that, but hey you do what you gotta do to be understood here! We ended up ordering paella with shrimp, chicken, calamari, and clams as our first course, grilled salmon as our second course, and flan and a cake-like thing for dessert. We also got a bottle of wine. The paella was amazing. When we finished that he served the salmon...okay, you would think salmon would be pretty basic but you would be wrong if you thought that. It looked like a salmon steak, and as Hill and I both took a bite we both looked at each other and started pulling bones out of our mouth. Long, skinny, hard SALMON BONES. And they were everywhere. I guess Spain doesn't have USDA regulations, but we ate around them. The flan was not like any flan I'd ever had before. It was more yellow than white, and very bitter...not sweet in the least! But the cake reminded me of tiramisu and was soooo good. Did I mention we paid 8 Euros each for our 3 course meal and wine?! And tipping...we tipped him the extra 2 from our 10 Euro bills but that was probably too much even though he was a great mesero.

Paella

Salmon and potatoes

Well we're both sitting in the lobby right now (that's the only place we get wifi free) and it's about 11:15pm. We're not going out tonight, we'll save that for tomorrow and get some extra rest.

Until then...adi!