We are here!

...and you are there. whereever "there" may be.

After 22 hours of travel from door to door, we arrived to our hotel here in Madrid at 7:30pm.

The trip all went quite well, and we were very pleased with the trip so far. Our flight from SFO to Chicago was about 45 minutes delayed due to the fog in SF. We had a 1.5 hour layover in Chicago, which was cut down to 45 minutes once we arrived. Luckily, our gates were in the same terminal, so we walked off one plane, and onto another with time to spare. Flight time: about 4 hours.

The flight from Chicago to London (Heathrow) went very well. It was a great 777, so we had lots of legroom, and comfy seats. The food was quite yummy (including the ice cream for dessert!) and I watched a couple of movies ("X-Men" and "The Family Stone") before napping for a couple of hours. (with the help of one pink pill, and a glass of red wine). I probably slept for a couple of hours before we were awoken for breakfast. Flight time: about 8 hours.

Once we landed in Heathrow, we collected our luggage (which thankfully made it just fine) and made our way from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. We checked in to our British Airways flight from Heathrow to Madrid, with a couple of hours to spare. The extra time worked well for us. We had to go through Security, which was a bit tighter than what we experienced at SFO. We grabbed a quick bite (because it´s all about eating when you travel) had a Coke to wake us up, and waited to see which gate we should go to...

The flight from Heathrow to Madrid was super - well, I´ll assume it was all good, because I was asleep the entire time :) Our flight (and luggage) all arrived on time.
Flight time: 2.5 hours.


Madrid Airport

Let me say here that I'm in love with the airport in Madrid. It is by far the most architecturally beautiful airport I've ever seen. I took several photos of it, but alas, I didn't bring my computer, so I won´t be able to download my photos until I get home.

Another treat at the Madrid Airport: "Trina" soda vending machines. Yep, we're in the land of "lots of Trina" again! More photos were taken... geeky photos, of me holding a soda can, in front of a soda dispenser...

Dick posing with a whole lotta Trina


Trina with Trina.

We caught a shuttle to our hotel, which is near the airport. The rest of our family is flying in tomorrow morning, and we´ll be meeting at the train station.

Happily, our hotel has a mini internet cafe, comprised of 2 computers. They charge 2 euro per half hour. As you can see, I really wanted to blog :)

I'm having a hard time adapting to the Spanish (European?) keyboard. All of the characters are in different places from what I'm used to, so it´s taking me a bit longer to type than usual. Hopefully, I'll have it down by the end of the week.

It's 10:45pm. We just finished a yummy dinner (onion soup, with fried egg, potato and jamon for me, and a fried cod for Dick) and I just *had* to hop on the internet before going to bed.

hopefully, we´ll find another internet cafe tomorrow in Seville....

good night.