"Guys, we are IN Spain!"

Tuesday March 10th, we awoke around 7:30am, ate breakfast, washed the dishes, got dressed and made sure we had everything that we needed for the next 2.5 months.  We had arranged an airport shuttle at 9:00am and off we went.  We checked our bags and went through security easily.  We got tickets for our first two flights, but not for the last.  We figured we would get it from the desk just before boarding.  On our flight from Austin to Dallas, Paul's seat wasn't with mine and Glenn's.  Not sure why, but he wasn't far--just diagonally behind us.  We got off that plane, walked to the next gate and immediately boarded the next plane to Miami.  That flight we were all together.  Then when we got off in Miami, we had enough time to exit the plane and get right to our next gate.  They had had some issue with the plane, but they were about to board.  Paul went to the desk to get our tickets printed.  It seemed to take him a long time, so Glenn and I went over to see if everything was okay.  No, it wasn't.  Paul had asked for our tickets and we were all in seats all around the plane--not close to one another.  Um, that's not going to work with a 5-year old!  So he asked if they could find seats that were together.  She said she'd work on it, but in the meantime she had helped about 30 other people--who were after Paul--get their seats together.  I guess they were originally going to be on a plane with a different seat configuration a 3-4-3 I think, but this new plane was a 2-5-2.  So I'm not sure why all the seats got messed up, but apparently they did for a lot of people.  

She finally gave new tickets to Paul, but they were still not all together, and even the seats for Glenn and I weren't right next to one other.  We were in the same row, but across the aisle from each other.  Still not going to work.  Oh, and the ticket that was for Paul didn't have his name on it--it was another person's name!  So he had to ask her to fix that.  Eventually we boarded the plane--one of the last ones, but we still didn't have seats together.  When we got on the plane I asked the stewardess about seeing if we could ask the person next to Glenn to switch with me so I could sit with my son.  She said that she wasn't allowed to make any changes.  Grr.  But thankfully the lady who had been at the ticket counter was on the plane and she took control.  She went to our seats and asked the girl who was sitting there to move over.  In the end that was the best because she had been split from her mom.  So now Glenn and I were together and she and her mom were together.  And Paul was about 20 rows behind us, at least on the same side.  We were bummed about that, but in the end there was nothing we could do about it.

Our long flight from Miami to Madrid went pretty well--little turbulence and not many sick people.  Glenn and I tried to watch a movie on the personal screens they had for us, but once the movie would get about 20-30 minutes in, it would stop working.  And that happened for every movie!  It was kind of frustrating.  Paul couldn't watch a movie either because something had been jammed into his headphone jack.  I tried to sleep, but can't very well on airplanes.  Glenn kept trying to watch Big Hero 6 but had to restart it over and over again.  Eventually it worked all the way through and he finished it.  By that time there was only about 2 hours left of the 8 hour flight and I needed him to sleep.  He resisted at first, but eventually he did sleep.  At least we got dinner and breakfast--that was good.  But I was happy to be off the plane.

When we got down to the baggage claim in the Madrid airport, we waited and waited for our bags.  They never showed up.  So we went to the desk to ask about them and we were told they had been stuck in Miami.  Boo.  So we went up to where the shuttles and taxis were and found the one that Paul had reserved.  It felt a little silly getting on the van with no luggage except the bags that we carried with us.  But that's how it was.  

We arrived at the hotel and since we didn't have bags to unpack, we took pictures instead.  We are staying at Apartamentos Ramón de la Cruz 41.  It's a nice place--a lot smaller than the hotel we stayed at 2 years ago.  But it is nice and clean and I think we'll do alright here.

We are in room 301.  It's a one-bedroom, one-bathroom hotel suite.  We have a small kitchen and a living room area.

The bedroom has to separate beds--makes me think of I LOVE Lucy...

The bathroom is bigger than our previous one, with more counter space--and it has shower doors that actually close all the way!  I was pretty happy about that feature!

The kitchen is small, but it is full of appliances!  We have a bigger fridge, a oven, a dishwasher, a washing machine and a microwave!  Our previous place only had burners and a microwave, and a small fridge.  So this is an improvement!

The kitchen has an opening, looking into the living room.  There is a fold-out bed in the couch that Glenn could use, or they said they could bring in another bed for him.  We decided that would be the best.  So after they brought the bed, we rearranged the room to better fit our situation.  We weren't sure if we were necessarily allowed to do it, but when the cleaning lady came in later, she said that people move furniture all the time.  Okay, good.

This is the view from our window.  Our previous place had tons of windows on two walls.  This place we have a window in the bedroom that looks into nothing, but the window in the living room has a really pretty view.  We have this school across from us and it is beautiful.  Plus, it isn't as tall as our building, so we can see other buildings around it too.

The street that we are on is less busy, or at least smaller than the previous street.  We don't have the bars and the restaurants below us like before either.  So thankfully it isn't really loud at night.  We do hear the kids and such during the day, but that doesn't bother us.  And occasionally we get to hear some church bells.  I like that!

Here's an up close of the school across from us.

Thursday afternoon we decided to enjoy the beautiful weather and go to the park.  Our hotel is 6 or 7 blocks from the northeast corner of Parque del Retiro--the largest park in the downtown area of Madrid.  We were trying to meet up with one of the American families that also lives near there, but Paul's phone wasn't working there yet and he couldn't remember which apartment they were in.  So we went to the park without them.  

We found a small playground and had fun.  We walked around the beautiful park and just enjoyed it.  Glenn isn't used to walking so much though and wanted to be carried a lot.  We brought his scooter along, but it was in the suitcase, and since that hadn't arrived with us, we didn't have it.  Their playgrounds are, well they seem a lot simpler than the ones we have in the States.  But they also had little exercise areas--with bike pedals and little places to stretch and strengthen your arms.

I liked that even the benches had the symbol of Madrid.  People from Madrid have a lot of pride in their city and their country.  They think it's the best in the world.  While I may not agree that it's the best, they do have some pretty amazing things!

When we arrived home from the park, our luggage was in the foyer--hooray!  So we brought it upstairs and unpacked a few things--mostly Glenn's toys and LEGO's.  The next day--Friday--Paul went in to work for a few hours while Glenn and I unpacked.  It's nice having our things out of the suitcases and into drawers and closets.  

Oh, and the title of this post comes from Glenn:  We had been talking about places we wanted to visit and we said something about northwest Spain and Glenn exclaimed, "Guys, we are in Spain!"  Like we didn't know that we were!  It made us laugh.  You're right Glenn, we are in Spain!