Little Ash is All Grown Up: Day 1- Travel to Madrid

My best friend Alex is a world traveler. I have been to most of the states but had only traveled outside of the country to Mexico and Canada and I was a little hesitant to go anywhere much further away than that. She finally convinced me to join her by allowing me to choose the country. I have always wanted to go to Spain- I understand a lot of Spanish, I love soccer, I have always wanted to see a real life castle, and Spanish men are BEAUTIFUL.

On May 17, our journey began. We left Alex's house at 3 am with around 3 hours of sleep total- I was too excited to sleep and Alex always leaves packing to the last minute. We drove my car down to the SLC airport and parked my car in long term parking. Our first flight was to Minneapolis and was only 2 hours long. 2 hours is about right for a flight- I hate flying and Alex gets claustrophobic so we were a bad pair! Since we didn't book our domestic flights together, we didn't have seats together. We ended up being stuck by some grouchy people and only being able to give each other funny looks over their heads. After a 2 hour layover in the Twin Cities we hopped a flight to Newark, New Jersey. Due to bad planning on our parts, we had to go out of security, pick up a checked bag, recheck it with another airline and then go back through in order to get on our international flight. We flew TapAir Portugal to cross the ocean. I had never flown across the Atlantic ocean and I was hoping it would go by quickly. The plane was huge and we had 2 seats all by ourselves so it seemed like it was going to be okay. The staff came over the intercom and let us know it was a 6 hour flight. I naively believed it was going to go fast... it was the LONGEST FLIGHT OF MY LIFE. I kept on dozing off and thinking more time had passed than it really had. When we finally landed in Lisbon the sun was just coming up. We had 2 more hours to kill until our flight to Madrid and explored the Lisbon airport. While I understand the basics in Spanish, Portuguese to me sounds like slurry French that someone scrambled in a blender- I couldn't understand anything. The only word I got out of the whole Portugal experience was "Obrigado" which means thank you.

The first Euros I exchanged for

We arrived in Madrid at 11:30 am Spain time on May 18. Everyone told us not to go to sleep until it was night time there so we could get onto the right time schedule. We were picked up and dropped off at our hotel by a representative of our tour company, Gate 1. We stayed the first 2 nights in Madrid at Vincci Capitol. It was right in the middle of a busy part of town and put us right into the heart of Madrid. We hurried and showered, explored our hotel room a little bit (lights are weird, the bathroom door was hidden in the wall, and they don't believe you should flush your toilet paper...) and then we went out to see what Madrid had to offer us.

Vincci Capitol

There were pedestrian only streets right across from our hotel that we wandered down. This was good and bad- good because I immediately fell in love with Spain! I love shopping! Bad because I wanted to buy everything and there were so many cute places to look into. Our tour guide Lisa had given us a map and circled a market for us to get our lunch at. As we made our way through the blocks to the market, we made several purchases. Our first purchases were European sunglasses. Everyone in Madrid had on chic flattering sunglasses and my cheap Ray Ban knockoffs from Walmart were not going to cut it. At the end of the first lane we found ourselves in Plaza de Mayor. It is one of the hundreds of plazas in Madrid and it was full of people. There were giant soccer jerseys hung on the buildings celebrating the two Madrid teams winning their respective championships- Atletico Madrid had just won their championship the night before we got there and Madrid was celebrating. I immediately fell in love- the city was vibrant and alive and people were everywhere having a great time. Of course I immediately bought a Cristiano Ronaldo jersey because a) he plays on Madrid b) he is currently the best soccer player on the planet and c) he is the sexiest athlete alive right now.

In front of the Real Madrid jersey hung in Plaza de Mayor

We made our way through the maze of streets to the market- streets aren't in square blocks- the bend, diagonally twist away, open to a plaza or dead end into a corner- you never know what you're going to get. At the market we tried our first Spanish food- croquetas. These are little breaded things that look like a mix between corn dogs and mozzarella sticks. We got chicken and cheese croquetas and they were delicious- meal one was a success! We followed up our lunch with churros con chocolate which turned into one of our favorite things about Spain. It's basically hot chocolate served with fresh churros for dipping. It is one of the yummiest treats there is. Really, you gotta try it.

There were so many little soccer shops everywhere- lining the streets, in every plaza. The Spaniards love their futbol. I was in heaven- I too am a futbol lover. We went into every store we passed and marveled at the cleats lining the walls, socks in every color imanginable, jerseys for all the major international stars, except from our home country (we did not see ANY USA jerseys), signed memorabilia from all the greats but mostly from Ronaldo, Messi and Casillas. I could have stayed for days in that plaza drooling over all the futbol memorabilia.

Our first day in Spain in Plaza Mayor

After 3 hours of exploring and shopping, we met up with the rest of the people on our tour for the first time. Most of them were senior citizens and we were among the youngest people there. Gate 1 sponsored a "Welcome Dinner" for the first night and took us to a local restaurant for dinner. I had high hopes- my first meal had been amazing, Spain was turning out okay. Unfortunately, our meal was disgusting. We were served a cultural dish from Spain called paella (pie-eya). It was seafood paella and everyone who knows me knows I LOATHE fish. I had to be a good sport and try it tho, when in Spain! It was inedible- full of chunks of crab (including the claws) and mussels still in their shells. They served flan for dessert and I found I am also not a fan of that. Dinner was disappointing but we went back to the room for jackets and then hit the town to see the night life.

In Plaza Mayor there were people everywhere! The city was celebrating Atletico Madrids recent win by jumping in the Poseidon fountain- jumping in fountains is how they celebrate wins. We missed the fountain jumping but got in on the celebrating in the plaza. There were boys doing rollerblade tricks to loud music and a circle gathered around them. The boys were around our age and were jumping over boxes that they kept stacking higher and higher. Then they started pulling girls out of the onlookers and having them lay on the ground. They would start far away and gain speed and jump over the girls on the ground while spinning and doing tricks. I was just remarking to Alex how crazy I thought those girls were when suddenly the cute Spaniard was pulling my hand to come participate!! Haha I decided to be brave and I just went with it- laid down right at the front of the line and had the time of my life. The boys were funny and flirty- they would skate right up to me acting like they were going to jump and then look down and wink at us screaming and skate off again. Alex ended up getting pulled in as well and in the end there were 10 of us lined up on the ground being jumped over. It was loads of fun- an adventure we'd never imagined doing.

Since we had been up for a whopping 48 hours- longer than I've ever been awake continuously in my life- we went back to the hotel and crashed for the night. Day 1 in Spain was a success. Madrid, tienes mi corazon.