Across the pond.

This is an email I sent to Becca, so that’s why it’s written to someone.  Pretty much, my first day in Madrid!

Am I allowed to say “the pond” or do only Brits say that? 

My flight was indeed bearable, because I had my own monitor in the seat in front of me! AND I could choose from like 12 different movies to watch!  I watched “Angels and Demons” and then  “Star Trek” and then most of “Monsters vs Aliens.”  Obviously, I didn’t really sleep.  When I sat down I was so surprised by how nice it was, and how there were headphones and a magazine in the pocket in front of me, I was like, am I in the wrong seat?  I totally thought someone was going to come and kick me out of the seat.  Not a lot of leg room, of course, but the seats went way far back.  Funny how things like that can totally make or break your day, and honestly, having all those movies for me to watch made it a lot easier to be leaving when I was getting off the phone with Mom and Dad.

You can tell Kelsey that I took your advice seriously, and choose pasta, which surprisingly enough was actually quite tasty.  There was a little dessert thing that had half (lame) of a strawberry and some brownie like stuff.  The stuff was gross (plus I had Reese’s) but the strawberry was tasty, and I wish I had gotten to have a whole one.  It was funny to watch everyone eating at the same time.  Now I understand why it’s called cattle car.

 My flight actually didn’t leave until almost 5.30 in the evening, because we would have gotten to Dusseldorf too early,  but sitting on the plane wasn’t bad since I had a new movie to watch.  I haven’t watched Benjamin Button yet…kind of saving it for a rainy day/last link to my life at home.  I was able to walk off the plane in Dusseldorf, go through security, go through customs (STAMP!) and then pretty much just walk on to the bus that took us out to the next plane to Madrid.  Little tiny plane, 2 hour flight, they had to wind up the rubber bands…and served us BREAKFAST!  Again!  Really!  And it was much much better than the first one I had.  I was so stunned at having breakfast on a regional flight that I almost forgot to eat it.  That plane too didn’t go til 45 min after scheduled take off, so I’m thinking they just had us out there early to line everyone up for as soon as they could get planes off the ground.  I read the whole time, which was nice.

 Got on the ground, got my bags, found Alyssa, and we hiked across the airport to the Metro.  If you are ever contemplating more than what I took, SHIP IT.  Two of the most miserable hours hauling my stuff up and down metro stations (3 line changes), and Alyssa’s wheelie broke a wheel.  Imagine that.  We made it to our last stop, got a soda at the Burger King, and got to the hostel.  Walking to the hostel was like being in a movie, like Chocolat.  All these little old ladies walking two by two, wearing dresses and cardigans and flats and moving very slowly.  The streets are all cobblestones, and windy!  No grid system where I am right now at least.  There’s a little tiny elevator which was just big enough to stuff our bags into, and we ran up the stairs to meet it.  The hostel is cute and clean, and has free wifi!  (once I got mine working).  We were super gross and sticky, so showers and naps to turn us into real people, and we got up to go exploring and!…I had spots in front of my eyes.  Like, sit down before you keel over spots.  Boo!  I took some drugs and Alyssa went out by herself and we decided that if I woke up feeling good I’d just wait for her to come back before I went out, since we only had one set of keys.

 Luckily, I did wake up feeling better, and Alyssa got back like 2 minutes after I woke up, so we went back out, and she took me to this little store that had internet in the back, and I was on doing…who knows what, trying to get ahold of Dad on skype, and then I did!  And we talked for a while, and that was really nice.  My time ran out, so we left and just wandered.  Alyssa got a SIM card for her phone, which I’m going to do today/tomorrow, and we went hunting for food, but we didn’t really know how it worked, so I got what I thought was a tuna sandwich, but wasn’t (it was gross) and we came back to the hostel.  I beat the free wi fi into submission, and talked with Dad some more, and tried to go to sleep.  Oddly enough, I woke up and hour and a half later, and since I didn’t have a flashlight, used my computer to read by, and then I checked my email, and now I’m here!

 

Today (Tuesday) we’re going exploring!   The weather is abosolutely wonderful, so it’ll be a great day to see Madrid!

Hasta luego, un beso-

Allie