It is a beautiful evening in Madrid. Even though the online weather tells me it is 95 out, it felt nicer than Rome since it is a drier heat. While I know we will bake in the sun, it is nice to not have the humidity.
Despite the sun and wonderful weather, we all are tucked away in our rooms early tonight. I had the pleasure of waking up at 1:45 am to get myself ready and then got the kids and other adults up by 2:15 (side note, as it is now 8:30 pm here, there is a clock tower somewhere nearby that has beautiful chimes that note each quarter hour).
Amazingly, we were all set and in the lobby of our hotel on time for our 3 am departure. Our flights took us through Munich and we had no problems.
Last night before dinner I warned all the group about the chaos to expect and how we needed to be prepared. Well, I was wrong. Instead of five hours of transportation confusion, we were picked up from the airport immediately upon landing and at our hotel less than an hour after our plan touched down.
The group took a short break then. Inistially I gave it to them to rest for a bit or shower. However, most explored their rooms. Our hotel is wonderful and the kids particularly are thrilled. I never knew bathrobes and lotion could fascinate to such a degree.
The group gathered and talked for about 15 mintues while three of us went down to another hotel (all of 200 or so feet away) to get the back packs from our travel group. I walked the group through the contents of their bags including the three most important items: the tags, the meal tickets, and the transportation ticket.
Once we had our new goodies (the bags contained many more items, but as I desperately need some sleep, I'll save that for tomorrow), we took half an hour for the group to get themselves ready for dinner. As our meal tickets are only good at certain restaurants and we wanted to eat earlier than normal for the city, we struggled at first to find somewhere to eat. Thankfully we found a very helpful gentleman to assist us - a Californian who has been living here for the last 15 years. He walked us through several blocks and was definitely a huge help.
Eventually we found Puerta del Sol. There, a major intersection of transportation (buses, metro, etc.) were several simple options. We were excited by one where we got three half sandwhiches, a cesar salad, soda, and ice cream!
Once all finsihed eating and had their ice cream, we returned to the hotel where (I suspect) most are finding their way to an early bed time - some of the group looked like we might have to carry them to the hotel.
That's all for now from Madrid. Stay tuned for more!
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