El Primer Día of Our Adventure!

I was so surprised...It's not that hard to navigate around Madrid.

Granted, we've only been through a small part, but hey! We even figured out the train system!

Anyway, I should start with the beginning of our trip. If you don't already know this, Russ and I are honeymooning in Spain! We boarded our planes yesterday, and after a long 5-hour wait in Charlotte, and then a really long 8-hour flight, we made it into Madrid!

I may look happy, but there's a lot of hidden sweat and exhaustion, too.

Then, after a lot of waiting and discussion, we learned that our luggage was left in Charlotte and that we would have to pick it up tomorrow morning. An inconvenience, but nothing too terrible. The only thing we're really bummed about is the fact that we had no different clothes to change into after over a day and two plane rides. Especially since I chose to be smart and wear jeans (since planes are freezing) and an NAU t-shirt (to save my cute shirts for Spain)...And it's been in the high 90s all day while we walk around. I can't even tell you how many gallons I've sweated out today. Plus, my makeup is all in my checked bag, because I didn't want to deal with showing security or some stupid reason. haha So I'm going without today. But who cares? We're in Spain!!

Anyway, next, we were slightly swindled in taking a taxi from the airport to Torrejón de Ardóz--a small city just on the outskirts of Madrid, where our hotel for the night is. The driver told us something about Torrejón charging extra taxes for taxi drivers or something--yeah, sure. Whatever. I was tired, and overwhelmed and nervous to use my Spanish.

Spain! Ignore the tired looks--we've been so giddy all day.

Eventually we made it to our hotel, and discovered it to be pretty nice! For 38 euros a night especially, it's pretty great! Only thing to complain about there is that our double bed is really two, extremely hard twins pushed together. But, really, it's one night. Once we got back to the hotel, we passed out for about 6 hours (at 9 am Madrid time, mind you). Finally, we woke up, feeling a million times better and, after a shower, ready to take on Madrid!

When the concierge told us the best way to Madrid central was to take the train, I was nervous. Especially when he said the train station was about a 15-minute walk from the hotel first. However, we bought our tickets, boarded a train and hoped it was the right one right up until the minute we saw the sign for Atocha--perfect!

We walked up the cobblestone streets toward the Plaza Mayor--probably about a mile's walk--loving the sights on the way, though I was huffing up the hill. Maybe I'm a little out of shape...But I'm gonna blame it on the jeans and dark t-shirt that had me sweating like crazy and feeling a little overheated.

Finally, we made it to the Plaza, and Russell understood why I'd told him to wait before we stopped. Beautiful Spanish architecture and style. The cobblestones. The arches. All the people sitting outside cafés, enjoying a drink and a tapa.

Pro sangria-drinkers.

We walked around the Plaza a bit, then were ushered to a table--which is just what I wanted anyway. We ordered some sangria--"Un pitcher?" the waiter asked--and a couple tapas to enjoy while we relaxed. We got the pollo y patatas--basically just little pieces of chicken and fried potato wedges in olive oil and sea salt, delicious!--and fried calamari, which I'm not a fan of. The sangria was delicious, and just perfect--simply adorned with orange and lemon wedges--and so smooth and cool. We felt rejuvenated so quickly.
 

Delicious.

By this time it was about 7 pm, and we'd decided to spend the evening in Torrejón, to make it easier on ourselves, so we started back toward the train station. Did I mention there was a weird little forest in there? Strange. haha

It was a nice, meandering walk, and we detoured through a little park or two, navigated through the train station like pros, buying our tickets and boarding the right train without hesitation or problem--we're quick learners!

Finally, we made it back to Torrejón and to our hotel. Now we're taking a small break (at 10 pm, crazy Spain), before we go back out and grab some dessert and just enjoy a little bit more of Torrejón before we move on to Córdoba tomorrow.

Hopefully I'll have some time again to type something up for you guys, again, once we get our luggage and rental car, and drive down to Córdoba. If not, that's what we're up to! Hope you're all having as much fun as we are (but that you're not quite so sweaty--seriously, that's my main problem today. haha).

Felíz noche de miel a mi esposo y que tengan un buen día! :]