Madrid

We left Arizona about 10am on Tuesday the 26th and arrived in Madrid about 10am on the 27th!! We flew all night, but we slept some - especially since Ken and I got to sit together (flying standby is always exciting!!) so I was able to lean up against him to sleep. We did stop over in Philly for a few hours, but mostly we flew. Arriving in Madrid we needed to meet up with the Grubbs in the airport, since they took a different flight. We had walkie talkies to help do this but after going thru immigration (I got my first stamp in my passport) we went to get our luggage and there across the baggage claim were the Grubbs. So we gathered out 1 suitcase apiece and multiple carry-ons to find our shuttle bus. It is a good thing Ken speaks Spanish, even tho he is somewhat rusty, he was fabulous. We tried to get some Euros from the cash machine but it did not work, but Linda had some Euros left over from Italy sooo... we find the shuttle, load our stuff, and show the driver our hotel name and address, sit back and watch the crazy driving all around us plus what the driver was doing. The shuttle set us down and we walk in to this really nice hotel - Linda had been a little worried about hotels because how can you tell from the Internet? - I was impressed, until we found out this was not our hotel!! But the shuttle driver was gone with our 66 euros and we were no where close to our real hotel - so now we find 2 taxis, because with 6 people and all the luggage only 2 will do. We then take another ride across town to our real hotel.

Here is Linda at the right place!! It was a nice hotel on the 3rd floor, of course they start with 0, so it was really 4 flights of stairs or 1 really tiny elevator. The room was not really big but we had a nice bathroom (Linda and Jerry's was a little slim) and 2 twin beds. No dryers in Spain so clotheslines and scratchy towels!!