Excursion: Day 1 and 2

Well..It is kind of embarrassing to admit, but we went to the airport one day early.  When we were booking the trip a month ago, we were looking at departures on Saturday and Friday. I booked the Saturday, wrote Saturday on the itinerary, but we still went to the airport on Friday. All said, it was for the better as we got to finish some things before we left. 

We started our trip with a 9 hour lay over in Toronto.  What is weird was that it was cheaper to fly from Cleveland to Toronto to Spain vs flying from Toronto to Spain.  I still do not know why that is.  But we took a day trip into Toronto from the airport via subway.  They have a very residential feeling downtown.  We spent most of out time on a bus tour of downtown to get a quick low down on the city, its history and see its sites.

Our flight from Toronto left at 9:50 pm direct to Madrid.  At least half of the plane was filled with high school kids returning to Madrid from a summer trip.  Not a bad flight in all.  I did have to regulate three girls who were crammed into two seats a few rows behind us as I could not handle one more giggle. However, they were polite and calmed down.  I think we both got maybe 3 hours of sleep before arriving in Madrid.  Great flight as we had access to all sorts of movies.  We watched Date Night for the first couple hours while we ate dinner. Why in the world do they not have internet on flight yet?  There must be some FAA reason.  First class has access to telephones.  So why can't we get wi fi on board.  There is satellite TV and radio, so I know it can be done.  Speaking of first class, I really want to be a bollar and eventually fly first class. They had beds!!!

We finally got our luggage at the airport and made our way downtown via train.  We are navigating our vacation cities with a few Frommer's Day by Day books.

 Let me take a moment to let you know that my computer knows that I am in a spanish speaking country as my google search has turned into Spanish.  Kinda cool...kinda creepy.  I need to change this ASAP. 

Anyways, we spent the first day in Madrid doing a traditional Madrid walking tour. We are got what I think was an unusual experience as it was a Sunday in August.  They say that many business close down for the month of August to go on vacation.  Also, many stores were closed today. Therefore, it was not crowded at all.  Some tourists, some locals, but not too many of either.   Walking around Madrid, what sticks out to me is the amazing Spanish architecture.  You either like or hate it. I think that it is nice as long as it has been renovated.  The buildings range from being recently renovated, to no renovation in a LONG time, to current renovation.  The city seems to be fairly clean. I did not see any stray animals (Athens will be another story).   The roads were not crowded with cars either.  However, there were no places to park them, so I am not sure where people park around the city. 

We are thinking about heading to Barcelona for a few days as it is pretty hot here.  95 degrees tomorrow. Plus we kind of feel that we dont want to leave Spain without visiting Barcelona.  Not sure exactly what we will do.  It is currently 2:43 am and I have already woke up, so I am not sure if I can fall back asleep.  We went to bed at 9:00 pm as we were exhausted from the overnight flight. 

I am going to to post all of our pictures on facebook and provide the link to all non-facebook readers.

Click here to see pictures

Buenas noches!!!!