Friday, June 22, 2018

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: VIVA ESPAÑA EDITION: JUNE 8-9

June 8-9, 2018: The Adventure Begins

This morning, Steve and I got up bright and early! Ok, Steve did. I was still dead asleep when the alarm rang and had to be shamed into getting out of bed. Shut up, I like sleeping!

Anyways, we both eventually got out of bed and finished up our last minute tasks, because today was the beginning of a new adventure! As we did in 2016, we are going on tour with one of the concert bands that Steve performs with, only this time we are headed to SPAIN! Woo-hoo! Also, as an interesting twist, we are also bringing along one of our best good friends, Anthony, who has learned how to play auxiliary percussion and will also be playing with the band. I’m the only one of the three of us who is just going along as a groupie and I’m perfectly ok with that!

We rented an SUV, picked up Anthony and headed to Atlanta to catch our flight.  Honestly, not much of note happened on the way there. We drove, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, and we made our way to the airport without incident! It was pandelerium as usual at the Atlanta airport, but we managed to check in, find our group, and get on the flight with only one person in our party (a tuba player) to catch grief from the airlines. Apparently someone in the TSA thought the tuba was some type of dangerous weapon and needed to interrogate the poor guy before they’d let him and his instrument pass. Oy.

The flight, too, was fairly uneventful, in the sense that we were crammed like cattle into coach and expected to be able to sleep. I took upwards of two melatonin tablets in an attempt to head off the worst part of arrival jet lag, but even with that, I only barely dozed. Eventually, though, we made it to Spain, breezed through customs (thankfully) and headed out to our waiting tour busses.

Normally I’d separate the days into new entries, but y’all...with the time change and the lack of sleep, the 8th and 9th felt like one long ass day, so forgive me for blending them together.

Madrid is a beautiful city with a lot of graffiti on every damn thing, but still, it’s a big, bustling city full of trees, gorgeous architecture, and statues of things. That sounds like a rather simplistic way of describing a place like Madrid, but honestly, that was my first, and sleep deprived, impression. We were taken to the main bull fighting ring in the city and allowed to get out and look around a bit. We didn’t go in, but that was ok. It was huge and beautiful, and we’d been instructed to take pictures and get a coffee or something while our tour guides got coordinated.

Ole?

We decided that coffee sounded ideal, so we walked to the first cafe we saw and descended like locusts. I ended up getting hot chocolate, and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve put into my face in months! I swear, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever had before. It was more like hot, thick, delicious, melted brownies than a beverage. It was also almost too much for me and it made my whole head tingle. I still drank it all and licked the cup! Haha!

This evokes feelings very close to the same ones I felt about the Belgian Caramels.

Full disclosure, due to the experience of traveling to a new place and for convenience, we are going off of our very strict, very calorie controlled diet while we are on this trip. I’m very nervous about this, because I genuinely don’t want to gain back a lot of weight that I’ve lost, and I know I’m going to just due to the fact that we couldn’t possibly carry our meal replacements with us AND we had no idea what to expect from the food in Spain. I already know I’m going to lose a lot of ground, but hopefully we can regain it (re-lose it?) when we get home. I’ve worked too hard to lose this weight to eff it up for keeps. I’m just going to have to be ashamed of myself when I get home, because I'M IN SPAIN AND I’LL EAT WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT!

Ahem.

After we left that area, we were taken to a tourist area called Plaza Mayor, which...I’m still not 100% sure wasn’t a place straight out of The Twilight zone. It was a town square of sorts that had a strange little, steampunky children’s fair type thing in it.


Yes, those are toilets. Is this even real life?

I don’t know, I was punchy from the lack of sleep and confused at the crowd, but Steve, Anthony and I rallied and went out to find some lunch. We stopped at a little outdoor cafe, where they ordered paella (a dish both of them were interested in trying) and I ordered some grilled octopus! Woot! It was delicious, of not a little scary to look at, but I ate a whole tentacle myself!

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

By then it was time to go to our hotel, thankfully, and we made our way to the Hotel Agumar. Nice place, tiny elevators.

We got settled in and hung out until dinner. The hotel has a buffet that we have already paid for, apparently, so we stayed in at dinner time. I know I'm talking about food a lot, but it’s practically a while new experience for me again, haha! The food was ok, but I had the feeling that the kitchen staff heard a bunch of Americans were coming and pulled up a kids menu from an American restaurant to acts as a guide. We had antipasto (I think...cheese and meat stuff anyway) and then chicken legs, spaghetti, and French fries. A strange combo, at least. Also, I think I’m going to overdose on the bread here. I can’t stop eating it!

DO NOT JUDGE ME

After dinner, we took a walk to a local, huge park, which was described as their “Central Park” and we looked around a bit. It was getting dark, but we could tell it was a beautiful place, and there are so many dogs that I want to pet! Madrid is a very dog friendly city, so I'm going to have to learn to ask if I can pet their dogs so that I don’t get in trouble!

We finally made it back and collapsed into bed. I literally have my own single bed. Perhaps they don't realize Steve and I are married, but you know what? I don't care in the least.  The jet lag still has me and my body is confused at the time, but hopefully it won’t last long. Goodnight!

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