Jensen to Jensen: Bienvenido a España!

Tuesday March 5th, we loaded up our suitcases into our friend Rebecca's car and off we went to the Austin airport. We had a short flight to Dallas and then a couple hour layover there. Things went so well with our flights and with the airports. I was very happy about that--no extra waiting or anything. Even going through security was a breeze!

I only took one picture during all of that--and it was in the Dallas airport. There was an interesting looking statue thing and Glenn was playing around in it.

Glenn did really well on the flights too. During the long flight Glenn made friends with the ladies around him. He first made a friend with the grandma sitting diagonally behind him. He shook her hand and then proceeded to talk to her and make faces and make her laugh. The girls around them were making comments about how cute he was and he soon noticed them watching him. Soon enough he was entertaining that part of the plane. He somehow got going with sign language. One of the girls asked if he knew the "I love you" sign. I said that he did, so she showed it to him and asked if what it meant. Glenn just shrugged his shoulders up, and kind of bobbled his head and said, "It means I love you." They just thought he was adorable! I wish I had had the camera accessible at that time because he was cracking up! He was having a lot of fun and I'm glad. It helped make the time on that long flight go by quicker.

He also napped for part of the time. Paul and I tried to sleep, but we weren't as lucky. They fed us pretty well on the flight--dinner and breakfast! I wasn't expecting that because of how flights are these days. But it was a pleasant surprise to have food.

When we arrived in the Madrid airport, we made our way to the baggage claim. Our bags were some of the first off the plane and onto the carousel. That was nice. We had 6 bags--plus our laptops and a couple back packs--so we needed two carts to carry it all. When we made our way outside to the taxi line, they asked if we wanted only one taxi--yes we did. They looked at us skeptically, like they didn't think all of our bags would fit in one car. The first taxi waved us on and wouldn't take us. Then one taxi driver was brave enough to try to pack it all in. And we made it! We had suitcases in the trunk, a couple bags in the front seat and a few bags with us in the back. It was pretty full, but we did it. Glenn fell asleep on the ride to the hotel. Paul was so good to talk to the driver in his broken Spanish/Portuguese. At that moment that Paul was talking to him and he didn't speak any English, I realized that I definitely was in a place where I didn't know the language. I felt a little overwhelmed--not too bad because I've been in this situation before, but I didn't have Glenn with me before. I knew that I would have to learn quickly in order to help Glenn also feel comfortable about where we going to be.

When we got to the hotel, it took awhile for them to work out our reservation.

I guess Ferrovial Agroman hadn't quite finalized it. So we had to wait a bit while the hotel staff had to finish it. Then we went up to our room. They didn't have a little cart, like they do in the States, so they had the maintenance guy bring some of our bags up for us. We found the elevator--and maybe I should take a picture because it is pretty small. Then we came to our room. Again we were on the 4th floor.

We have a corner room and it is set up pretty nice.

(That top floor where the windows are bumped out a bit is ours.)

It isn't as big as the hotel that we just came from, but there are two bedrooms and a living area and that is great. There is a small kitchen--tucked away behind some folding closet doors. They don't have dressers or drawers really, so we've had to find places for our clothes.

(Our door and entry way)

(The living room)

(The closet kitchen)

(The hallway with the closet on the right)

(Paul and my bedroom)

(Glenn's room)

(Our bathroom)

(Yep, that's a shower with only a door that covers half of it--so basically the water kind of splashes around--not too bad, but it can get all over.)

(The view from our windows)

(Looking east)

(Looking south)

( Looking north)

(Looking west)

So that's our hotel! We have napped and slept in and tried to adjust to the different time. But the Spanish people do things a bit later here--for example they have lunch around 2 or 3pm. And they take a long lunch. So then dinner isn't until like 9 or 10pm. I kept thinking we were staying up too late in Texas, but maybe it was getting us ready to live here in Madrid! : D

It has been rainy this week that we have been here. So we didn't venture out too much at first. We did go out on Thursday afternoon to find the metro station and to get a pass. We also walked a bit around those streets and we looked in some stores. One store Glenn tried on several hats.