Cross Spain off the List!

Hey guys!

I went to Spain last weekend! Seriously, I did. I left Heidelberg Friday morning around 9, headed to the Frankfurt am Main airport, and after a small bomb scare, I checked right in, waited for a little while, and then got on an Iberia flight to Madrid. The seats were so small, I had bruises on my knees when I got to Caceres. Cheap flight, though.

So I got to Caceres at 11 at night with NO problems! Now, for any of you who know me, this is a big deal. On previous trips I have...missed flights and had to buy extraordinarily expensive flights home on the day of in a foreign currency doing a lot better than the US dollar, wandered around a city between 1 and 3 in the morning in rain and ended up sleeping on the floor of a hostel, not to mention when my hostel reservation got deleted when Katie and I went to Prague. All this to say, as Brian asked me when I got back "does it feel like you didn't travel at all?" Except that it was a good thing that everything went well.

Let me share something with you: Spain is really, really cool. First of all, it's beautiful. The architecture is beautiful, the weather is beautiful, the landscape is beautiful- it's all just so pretty. Which was kind of surprising to me, just because I never really wanted to go to Spain, I never had this deep desire to visit it, it was always just kind of there (Sorry, Spain. We're totally cool now, though!). Now, though, I've added it to a mental list I have of places to go back to.

With Becca, I visited the old town, experienced tapas as well as a(n atypical) Spanish bar, siested (is that a verb?), took lots of walks, took a million pictures, caught up, read, got a little sunburned (sorry, mom, I forgot my sunscreen. if it helps, I heard your chastising sigh when I caught a look at myself in the mirror the next day) and just enjoyed Spanish life. There was a protest in the Plaza Mayor in the center of town about the elections that were on Sunday, which was pretty cool to see, and I met a ton of Spanish people to whom I spoke my very sad (wha-? No, I mean, I'm completely fluent in Espanol) Spanish and cheek-kiss-greeted (encantada!).

After a great two days in Caceres with Becca, on Monday morning, I took a bus at 1.45 am to Madrid, where I had plenty of time to find churros y chocolate before heading to the airport and waiting there for a few hours before my plane left (although my RyanAir flight was, surprisingly, delayed. Sit down, I know you're all shocked). I will be honest, I laid down on some chairs in the waiting area and I legitimately fell asleep for a few hours, just because I was so exhausted. Those people waiting to go places with RyanAir got to see me at my best.

My trip to the Madrid airport was because I also went to Mallorca! Holla! Got to see me some

ocean and visit another friend! The Mallorca leg of my journey was not very well planned out, and I ended up being there only 12 hours, but what a great 12 hours they were! I got to see the Mediterranean Sea! Jen packed in as much as she possibly could with such a short visit- we rode bikes to la playa (the beach, for those of you less familiar with the Spanish tongue than me), saw the town at night, went to the store to get stuff for (a delicious) dinner, and drank Spanish wine while eating Spanish cheese. It was a fantastic-if way too short- trip.