We've gone abroad!

Europe Bound!

Time has flown by since my last post.....quick recap: Ryan and I are now.....finally married! Two short weeks later we've set off for our epic three month long Europe trip!

Day 1-2: Los Angeles, USA - Madrid, Spain

Our flight schedule was a little weird.... We left LAX for our first leg to San Diego where we had a seven hour layover.... Luckily we had a place to crash for the night (thanks Michelle!).... Then we hopped on our second leg to JFK airport in New York. There we had a three hour layover....again lucky for us we finally remembered to use the Admiral's Club and received a few free drinks and a nice hot shower so time flew by. Our final leg was to Madrid! You might wonder why we chose a crazy schedule .... I was trying to use up my American Airline points before they devalued their point system and I wanted to make sure we got on a plane with lay flat seats(SO WORTH IT!!!).

Resting on the plane

Anyways....

It only took 3 planes, 2 days, and a little time travel... But we finally made it to Madrid!

When we landed in Madrid we walked to the customs area, nervously handed over our passports... expecting to be interrogated about why we are in Spain and details about our travel plans.... instead we quickly got our FIRST stamp in our passports and shooed away. We had a little hiccup with our mobile phone not connecting to the network... but we quickly got that taken care of before leaving the airport. When we stepped out of the airport we stood there for a few minutes kind of dazed and confused... not sure what to do. It took us a bit to find the bus we needed to get to the city center (it's hard to travel when you barely understand the signs).

We had a few hours to kill before we could check into our airbnb so we walked around town to check things out (next time we will make sure we have early check in since carry our bags for three hours was brutal).

Here's a few pictures:

Bus arrival station

Vertical greenery wall

Pokemon Hotspot

       

 After we checked-in we took a little nap since we were super jet-lagged (we thought we could push through it but that proved incorrect). Apparently we chose the right time to stay in this apartment because this neighborhood was celebrating the Fiestas de Lavapies so after our nap we strolled the streets to check out the celebration. It reminded us of a carnival on the street... there were games, music, food, parade, and street performers... it was pretty cool.  We decided to get some beer and try some food.... since I took a few years of spanish in school I was pretty confident I could order some dang beer.... I was SO wrong. Here's how it went down... Me: "Dos cervezas por favor".... Sales guy: 'confused look' Me: "Uhhh... dos cervezas?" (looks at Ryan for help... Ryan was no help.) .... Sales guy: "confused look..... Me: "Two beers?".... we got our beer.   I guess my pronunciation was off  or something?? 

Our first Spanish meal and cerveza!

After we finished our food and beer we decided to go this couchsurfing event at a little tapas bar.... this place was packed with people and we had no idea what to do... so we orders a couple of beers and snacked on the tapas that came with them. 

Ryan actually bit into the tapa with the jalapeno and everything without me having to coax him into trying it! Luckily the jalapeno wasn't hot at all and the tapa was delicious! After we scarfed down the tapas we decided we needed to mingle... so we started chatting with a few people who were part of the event and they introduced us to some locals whom we chatted with all night. When the bar was closing we took one of our bar mates to the fiesta de lavapies around 1am and it was still booming! Like we literally couldn't walk down the street because it was so packed with people drinking and dancing to the super loud music.... it was almost like a concert. Anyways, I think our first day in Madrid was a success.