Back again . . .

Once we were settled on the plane, we were served dinner again, and all of us had to be making the flight attendants laugh because we all took pictures of our dinner. Kelly, I wanted to let you know that the flight attendants were extrmemly nice, and I practiced saying por favor, gracias, cafe, and aqua to them! (Sorry Giselle, Marcela, Samara, Maria, etc. but I don't know how to put accents on any of the letters.) Below is a picture of our meal. In the second picture, you can see Dayana getting ready to eat. Margaret (behind her) had already fallen asleep by the time dinner was served.

 I decided to bust out the Bonine (for those of you who are blessed with no motions sickness issues, that is motion sickness medicine); I definitely did not want to have a revisit of the last family fishing trip I went on . . many of you remember that one . . .plus I thought it would help me sleep. That was a good idea. Although most of the flight was smooth, the last part of it was bumpy, and one student did get sick. After dinner, we started watching the movie, Unknown. Halfway through the movie, the Bonine did the trick, and I fell asleep too (with no motion sickness!). After a lot of tossing and turning for all of us, we woke up and they served us breakfast, but we were too tired at that point to take any pictures of our turkey sandwich and cafe! Then, the screen in front of my seat showed us that we were getting very close. See for yourself . . .

And then . . .BIENVENIDA A MADRID!

Look at all that luggage. So, then, we headed toward the customs line, and Professor Raleigh asked me if I had any stamps in my passport. I told him that I didn't, but I wanted one from Spain for sure. He said that they don't always stamp your passport so you should ask them to stamp it. Everyone was in the same line, and then a different line opened up and the man asked me to come over to his line. He started speaking in Spanish, and I forgot everything I had learned. I went blank! I panicked! Good thing I wasn't doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing, or I would have looked guilty for sure. He asked me in Spanish if this was my first time visiting Spain. Needless to say, with the blank, yet anxious look on my face, he figured out quickly that it was indeed my first trip to Spain and restated the question in English. I mumbled "si, gracias!", and he let me through. On the other side, the students and Prof. Raleigh said, "Did you get your passport stamped?", and I honestly had no idea. But, i looked down, and whew . . yes, I now have a stamp in my pasaporte from Spain. Very cool! So, what was the very first thing I noticed about Madrid? The HEAT! We flew from Miami so we know the HEAT (both hot weather and basketball!), but we could not believe how hot it was in Madrid. Muy caliente!! Then, we hopped on a bus to take us to our home for a month.

San Lorenzo El Escorial!

Adios for now!