We made it to Spain!!!

Ok, so short summary of prior events:
Our trip had been set: 1 week in Romania+Budapest helping with Habitat with Humanity, then half week with Sam Mar in Switzerland, last weekend hurrah with Rex in Madrid!

April 13 or 14th: Iceland volcano starts spewing ash, blocking Euopre airspace
April 16th: Jackie and Jeff Romania trip delayed till Monday 19th because of ash cloud. Flight wasn't canceled till like 3-4 hrs before liftoff even though the world knew that the ash cloud was stopping everything
April 18th: ASh cloud still relentless, so we canceled the Romania trip alotgether. Because Madrid was not affected by the ash cloud, we changed our plans to a full week and a half vacation to just Spain, visiting Madrid and Barcelona.

*To all those wonderful people who donated it to us, we are still working on the finances, but the money you donated to use will probably go to a 2011 service trip to either Guatemala or Vietnam! Sounds fun already - already hoping more earthquakes/tidal waves etc spoil 2011*

April 24th: Departed for Madrid! We're at the airport over 2 hrs early, BUT CVG to ATL flight is alreayd delayed which means we're going to miss our ATL-MAD plane. BUT we hop on an earlier flight so we make our connection in time.

April 25th: 9:35 AM Touchdown in Madrid!!! We made it, get through immigration to problems! Then...BAGGAGE CLAIM...waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Turns out because of our CVG flight mishap, our luggage didn't get switched with us and completely missed the plane. HOWEVER, we are so happy jsut to make it out and start vacation we are still so
happy! After messing with all the lost luggage paperwork...

12:30PM- Take the metro and arrive to Rex's house where his friend Yolanda meets us with keys! We immediately crash for 3 hrs even though we are hungry...

3:30PM to 10:00PM get our butts out of bed and start exploring Madrid AND Madrid's food! We walked all up and down the east side of Madrid checking out Plazas (Italy crew knows I love Plazas because they make such great places to meet), statues, palaces and shopping. Among the shopping hit list was H&M where I procured some cheap outfits in case our luggage didn't make it out:/

Food hit list so far:
-Fresh fried Churros + Chocolate drink/dip
-Jamon sandwiches with Fanta (yum)
-Curry mussels with side of potato souffle with waffle for dessert
-Beer with corn nut tapas

Midnight: Rex gets back and we have a mini reunion + Rex meet Jackie time. Then Rex proceeds to show us the debauchery that is La Latina on a Sunday night. Honestly, this is absolute chaos: kids of all ages drinking in large packs, sitting on the floor, on public fountains, mixing liquor and coke in 2 liters, and even red wine and coke (gross right? but i want to try it now) Just insane for a Sunday night- IMO seems more festive then 6th street. Rex also mentioned that people are generally not getting in fights and throwing up all over the place - which is more like 6th street. haha. We sit down for some midnight snacks:

New food victims:
-More delicious jamon and bread
-fresh fried calamares with lemon
-coquettes (fried potato cheese things, i know. it sounds good.)
-Sangria

All in all, a wonderful first day. not bad for all that on <3 hrs of sleep! Closed the night with some laundry, some blogging, and some fervent calls to delta to resolve our lost luggage. As of this momment, the forecast is that we will receive our luggage in the AM just in time for us to make it to Barcelona!!!

Until then, thanks for reading. May update with pics if i have time...no promises :p

Miss you all,
Jackie and Jeff