First day

Well, Morrigan (a close friend and travel buddy from Newark, NJ to Madrid) have arrived safely in Spain.  We both discussed how hard it is to leave friends and family behind.  It's definitely easier to have someone with me during the first few days of this trip; otherwise I think the stress of everything would send me over the edge.  I'm very grateful Morrigan received her visa since, as some of you know, it was an issue.

I flew from Des Moines this time around which, was nice because it's about a 20 minute drive from our house instead of 6 hours to Chicago like last time.  Des Moines was a little bit of a rocky start as our plane was delayed boarding (only about 10 mintues) because lightning was too close to the airport.  Fantastic.  After we finally got boarded and our luggage made it on (another small scare) we were off to Chicago.

I was in seat A (thank God) so I was able to rest easy.  The man in seat B arrived and found that both his row's seats A and C were taken, sighed loudly, and proceeded to see if there was another seat farther back that he could "spread out".  Okaaaaay... About 10 minutes later, he comes back and fervently asks the flight attendant what he should do.  (About what?!  Sit in your own seat!  It's a 45 minute flight, lock it up!)  I guess I should give him the benefit of the doubt, I'd be a little testy if I was dressed business casual also, but still.

By the time I arrived at Newark to meet Morrigan I was getting anxious to just be in one place.  Sadly, we still had our longest flight ahead of us.  I do have to hand it to Continental Airlines: their  personal TVs and plethora of movie/TV show choices  really helped pass the time; and the plane food wasn't half bad either.

After arriving in Madrid around 10:00am on Wednesday, the 22nd, we got our luggage and decided to tour Madrid for a while.  Mrs. Kuiken, our gracious hostess and my former high school physics teacher, wouldn't be home until around 6:00pm.  We stashed our luggage in the airport lockers (VERY handy) and went in search for lunch and, yes, Wi-fi ("wee-fee") internet.  Low and behold, we found the latter at Starbucks.  We found a small cafe and ordered tortilla española (egg, potato and onion omelette) and patatas bravas (fried potatoes w/ some type of hot sauce and usually mayonnaise) for lunch.  Yes, clearly, I eat my feelings.  It was so good neither of us cared.

One thing I did forget, and need to remember quick, is to look both ways when crossing the street.  At Iowa, since it was a college town, you didn't really have to look at all; you could cross and still expect to live.  Not here.  We almost got taken out by a couple of Smart Cars and you all know how much I despise those.

After our Starbucks run we decided to ride the Metro back to the airport and collect our luggage so we could meet Linda (Mrs. Kuiken) at her house.  Easier said than done.  I had two suitcases, each weighing 50 lbs, and two carry-ons (probably a combined weight of another 50 lbs, and I'm being modest.  Needless to say, we looked like COMPLETE tools trying to navigate back to the Metro.  For those of you who are inexperienced with Metro travel, let me paint you a picture.  You buy a small ticket slip it through a machine which reads it, spits it back out to you, and opens its plastic doors for about 3.5 seconds so you can pass.  The doors are skinny and you can't forcefully push them open.  Well, here's the issue: what are you supposed to do if you have 10,000 lbs of bags with you?  Luckily the security guard took pity on us and let us use the gate to the side.

We made it to our final stop and got a taxi to Linda's address.  Well, the taxi driver was unfamiliar with the location (perfect) so we got a little turned around.  He let us off at apartments 25-51 on Linda's street.  Excellent-Linda is apt. 26, we should be fine!  By this time, it's about 9:00 pm even though I told her we'd be to her apartment by about 6:30.  Extreme fail.  At any rate, I happily tell the guard we're looking for apartment 26 2D and to please call the tenant so she can let us up.  I'm told that 26 doesn't exist.  No. 26 DOES exist, why would you have something etched in stone on your building that is 25-51 if 26 was absent?  Oh, well, this is the odd buildings...  Do you understand?  It's 25, 27, et cetera.  Of course it is.  26, apparently, is 100 meters down the road.  Well, thankfully, 100 meters (in my mind) is just a quick jaunt so we should be there in about 2 minutes.  Again, false.  We start walking and then decide that one of us will sit on the curb with ALL of our stuff, while the other walks to find 26.  By now, I'm beyond the point of frustration and instead, think that our predicament is comical.  It wasn't.  Morrigan comes back saying she found 26, after about 15 minutes of me waiting, thinking she'd been kidnapped (I'm SUCH an optimist).  We FINALLY get to 26, thank you, baby jesus, only for the man in charge of the gate to say that, no, only one person lives in 26 2D and it's Frederic.  No.  No, it's not; it's Linda Kuiken and her husband.  (Maybe his name is Frederic...I don't think so...)  The gate keeper says I can call if I want but he's pretty sure Frederic is not here.  That's fine, look at ALL of your tenant and see which one is named Linda Kuiken, I'll call that number instead; maybe I wrote her address down wrong.  He looks at me skeptically and tells me to call Freddy again.  I do, look in the camera, nothing.  So, Morrigan and I and our luggage are stranded outside of building 26 with the security guard who probably thinks I'm making something up about there even being a person named Linda.  I turn around and there's Linda!  She DOES exist!  She explained to me that she and her husband are renting from Frederic so his name appears on everything.  After getting our stuff upstairs to her apartment and having a grand tour, we decided to check email one more time and hit the hay.  Hopefully the next couple days will be easier; we hope to tour Madrid and a couple of the museums here and to eat at the world's oldest restaurant.  It's named in one of Cervantes' books (maybe Don Q?) and a couple of other books by English authors, though I can't remember which.  It's called Sobrino de Botín; I'm pretty excited.  More later!

Oh-if you want to contact me I have facebook (probably most convenient for most of you) or email (kaylaesmith1@gmail.com) and I have an app on my iphone that is free texting.  My number is 1 (515) 824-7121.  Please include your name if you text me, as the name of the sender isn't saved in my contacts yet.  They all work here so far so contact me as often as you want!