I made it here to Madrid safe and sound and everything is great! For the interest of time, I'll just go ahead and skip to the good stuff...
After we got through baggage claim and customs and all that in Madrid, we all piled onto a nice coach bus and took a driving tour of the city. And guess what our first stop was? THE BERNABEU--Real Madrid's incredible stadium! So huge, so cool! Posters of Ronaldo everywhere. It truly looks like a royal soccer palace. I was blown away. Very, very impressive, but the tours were closed for the day so we'll have to do that when we come back to Madrid for our eurotrip in June. It was really cool from the outside, though, and it was so cool to just be there looking up at such an epic piece of soccer history. A great way to start the trip!
From there, we drove around the rest of Madrid and our teacher pointed out all the interesting things--lots of museums, gardens, the national library, the royal palace (which is HUGE), the most famous bullfighting stadium in the city, and a number of very impressive and important business buildings. It was a great way to get a quick look at the amazing city and get to take in all of the incredible architecture. There are no dull buildings here--they all have some kind of intricate carving or a statue out front or a crazy dome on top. Everything is worth taking a picture of and just like in Yellowstone, my camera can't keep up with my eye!
After the tour, we drove to the hotel and checked in and all that...and guess what? The hotel that we are staying in is the hotel that ERNEST HEMINGWAY stayed in nearly every time he came to Madrid! And the hotel restaurant that we'll be having dinner at tonight also happens to be his favorite bar to drink in while he was here! How awesome is that!? I am in absolute disbelief! The first day I'm here, and I stay in the hotel that my favorite writer spent a good part of his life in! Wow wow wow! Here's the view from our room when we got there, then at night:
After checking in, me and about 8 of the other kids went out to lunch at a little cafe place down the street (we're in the heart of the city by the way) and experienced our first Spanish meal. The waiter we had was great but ordering was harder than expected, and the meal was very good. A tomato salad and bread, a chicken and potatoes dish, tiramisu, all the wine I could drink, and coffee at the end...all for 7 euros. I can sure get used to that! This is us with our waiter:
Right now I'm going to shower and get ready for dinner tonight, then get some much needed sleep so that I'm ready to do some more exploring tomorrow. This city is fantastic and Spain is everything I hoped it would be...and it's only day one! I haven't seen anything yet!
I'll write again when I can.
Much love to all!
C
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