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Thursday, February 27, 2003
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We picked the kids up from school (Woodward North) at 2:30 pm. We were all so excited for our trip to Spain. Darby asked her teacher if it was time for her to go all day long! The kids changed into comfy clothes and we headed to the Atlanta airport. We arrived in plenty of time, checked in for Delta flight 108, and headed for Concourse E. We got an ice cream for the kids while we waited for the flight. Soon we boarded; Darby and Daddy in the seats in front of Grayson and Mom. We took off right at 6 pm. The strangest thing happened, we ran into our home builder on the flight. He is from Madrid originally so he was heading back for a weekend visit. After dinner on the plane – the kids had a special meal - we watched “Sweet Home Alabama” and snuggled in for the 8 hour flight. After only a few hours of sleep, the flight attendants woke us for breakfast and soon after we landed. Grayson especially loved to watch the flight map onboard to follow where we were and it was neat to look out the window and see the snow capped mountains of Spain’s northwest corner. We landed in Madrid excited, but tired at 8 am.
Friday, February 28, 2003
After retrieving our luggage, we picked up our rental van for the trip – an Opal minivan Zafara. It was very spacious with lots of trunk space and it was a five speed. We loaded up and headed north to our hotel for the night. The Avis lady provided us with directions, but we soon were to learn that good directions in Spain are hard to come by…
We finally arrived at the Holiday Inn in Tres Cantos at about 9:30 am. We asked for an early check in and while they worked on that for us, we strolled down the street to a local grocery store to grab a snack and kill some time. We all decided (Mark and Jonna) that we would not lay down and take a nap, but instead explore Madrid and go to bed early that night in an attempt to ward of too much jet lag. Once we were checked in, Jonna jumped in the shower and when she emerged, all other family members were fast asleep. So much for the plan of staying awake! Finally after a nap, we all headed out to explore Madrid. We jumped on the train from Tres Cantos to the Principe Pio station downtown. We walked over to the Palacio Real (Royal Palace), but by the time we arrived it was 3:45 and too late for a tour. Instead we just walked around exploring the gardens and had a late lunch.
After lunch, we walked over to the Puerta del Sol, Sun’s Gate, in downtown Madrid. It has been a plaza since 1570 and is the “heart” of Madrid. It is marked zero kilometers and all distances in Spain are measured from this spot. We continued walking through downtown and enjoyed people watching and the sights and sounds of Madrid!
From the Puerta del Sol, we headed over to the Parque de Retiro. The kids played on the playground and ran off some steam. We saw policemen patrolling on horseback and thoroughly enjoyed strolling through the park and back to the train station – Atocha to head back to the hotel to get some sleep. Scary enough, almost one year later, attacks on the Madrid metro station included the line we road we were on…
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