Hola from Madrid...

The saga continues. Very nearly on my deathbed, I flew to Madrid, via Heathrow in London. The flight from Chicago to Heathrow was only about a quarter full, and I watched Sense and Sensibility. Quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep. When I got to Heathrow, I had no idea what gate my connecting flight was from. I don't know what is going on at Heathrow, but I walked so far in makeshift, temporary terminals, that I thought I was going to end up in France. The gate for my flight was announced 20 minutes before take off, and of course, I had to be that idiot running to catch my flight. Which was full. Fortunately, it was only a couple of hours. Upon arriving in Madrid, my father and I had a foolproof plan to meet up from our separate flights. I would...find...him. Really, it didn't seem like such a stupid plan at the time. I was supposed to have a couple of hours before he flew in to find out what baggage claim to meet him at. However, my plane had sat on the runway at Heathrow for a verrrry long time before taking off, and Dad's had been on time. And, as it turns out, I was in a different terminal that was a fairly long bus ride away from his. AND, at the Madrid airport, you can't get into baggage claim unless you're a passenger disembarking. Needless to say, there was about an hour of confusion and wandering around until Dad and I finally bumped into each other. After finding each other, we braved the metro and found our way to the International Youth Hostel, where the very cranky woman who spoke no English checked us in. The hostel was fairly nice, but also expensive. I think we paid about $20-25 a night each to share a room with seven other people. Who were mostly drunk French students on a weekend trip to go night clubbing in Madrid. I don't remember very much of Madrid as I was so sick I only wanted to sleep. And my sleep schedule was a disaster. I woke up every morning at 4 am and went down to the lobby to read. Dad and I did go on a few adventures in Madrid. We went to the Prado, which is the large art museum. They had a really great exhibit of Velazquez. We also saw the Palace and government buildings. And we went to see In the Valley of Elah, the movie about the Iraq war which Tommy Lee Jones received an Oscar nomination for. It was even in English. We ate paella, which is mostly a lot of rice and various chunks of meat. Oh, and we saw the man in this picture, who apparently was making a public service announcement. Turns out he was incorrect. I also put a lot of miles on my Morocco shoes, seen in the picture here. I think we may have collectively lost about 20 pounds from walking.