Saturday, March 7, 2015

After snow, ice, delays, a very long flight, and missing our second flight, we finally made it to Spain! Boy, what an adventure already! Thursday afternoon, we headed to the airport. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 6:50 pm, but we had to check out of the hotel in the afternoon, so we spent some time at the airport. We made it pretty quickly through security...they didn't even make us take off our shoes, which was nice! After sitting at our gate for a few hours, they announced that we would be boarding about 45 minutes late. That's ok..we could still totally make our next flight! It was snowing outside, but other flights were still taking off..

We finally boarded our plane. I was all the way in the back. I had never been on a plane so huge..it was pretty cool. At least, at first it was cool...About 2 hours later, we were still sitting on the tarmac. Not so cool anymore. We finally took off, and I was so happy to be in the air. I barely slept at all on the flight..airplanes are not easy to sleep on. Plus, it was SO turbulent! 

We finally landed in France at around 10 am Europe time. We got on another flight to Spain pretty easily, which was totally a God thing. Then we went through customs and had a couple of hours to chill. I drank my first European cappuccino, which was heavenly. 

I also ate some kind of croissant with chocolate in the middle..also amazing. Then we went in search of some French macarons. 

Can I describe them as heavenly, too? Because they totally were.

We finally boarded our plane for SPAIN! As we were flying away, I saw the Eiffel Tower from the window. Of course it looked super tiny..but maybe one day I will see it for real.

We landed in Spain completely exhausted. You know that thing, jet lag? Yeah, totally real. Thank goodness we were in Europe, which, I discovered, has some pretty amazing coffee.

After meeting up with our host, we headed to the organization we would be working with for the next week. We took a tour of the building, had some dinner, and headed to our hotel for some MUCH needed sleep. Oh, did I mention that we took the metro? Yeah, every bit as confusing as you think..

This morning, we got to sleep in a little and woke up to gorgeous sunshine. After some delicious breakfast,we took the bus (all by ourselves) to meet Dan and Eva. We got to see a little bit more of the building, and did some work and preparation for the coming week.

For lunch, we ate at this little bar/cafe down the street. We had salad, bread, and paella (top left corner in photo). Paella is basically this delicious conglomeration of rice and seafood. Emphasis on delicious! Seriously. For dinner, we got to experience some flamenco music and tons of traditional foods, such as: Spanish tortilla, chorizo, and pig ears. Yeah, pig ears. Kinda like chewy bacon.

It was a wonderful and exhausting day. (Have I mentioned that dinner is at 9:30 pm usually?) Tomorrow we will be heading to church in the city of Madrid. We also get to experience some Moroccan culture! Can't wait for that!