We Made It!

We are a little weary, but safe and sound in Madrid, Spain.

We set out this morning from home to catch our noon flight out.

For those of you who are wondering, Dave and I did indeed sit in First Class while the kids remained in Economy.

And to the kids credit, they were AMAZING!


"Gold Star Travelers" was quoted by a Flight Attendant...so, we admitted they were ours and let them rejoin us in the jetway.


The flight into Madrid was interesting. The landscape changed quickly from "California-esque",

to green(!),

to brown patches with odd tree-clumps,

to crop circles(?!)...

And then to our Final Destination, Madrid.

Once on the ground again, we exchanged our journey above the earth to one beneath.

And finally settled ourselves in our Casa Away from Home.

Not much sleep was had by anyone on the plane - although being able to sleep flat on a plane is one experience I won't soon forget. Going back to Economy is going to be a tough reality at the end of this trip.


In order to get everyone to sleep the first night in our new time zone (9 hours ahead -for those who are wondering), our goal was to keep the kids moving, in the sun, and pump them full of sugary treats (we get an additional benefit from this one due to the shock and excitement when we actually say "yes").


After our first Madrid-style Lunch,

we headed off to some local gardens.


Our apartment is close to the Train Station so we headed back to get a closer look at the enormous Tropical Garden INSIDE.

It is quite beautiful and comes complete with easily a hundred turtles.


At the Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid we saw a wide variety of folage and drank from a potable spring.

Then we moved on to some well-needed ice cream.

Yes, they are eating mango and tangerine ice cream in wine glasses!!


Next on our Garden Tour was the Vertical Garden.

A very interesting visual and physically-puzzling feature.


And then a stop for some more sugar...

some very happy kids (and 1 apparently too hungry to wait for the photo-op)!


With our day-end drawing near we were privileged to experience some rain...in Spain...

Is Madrid in the Plain?? (probably not, it didn't last very long...).


Our final stop, before returning to our Casa for dinner and bed, was at the local grocery store. Where we saw our first Ham Tree.

Indeed.


There is actually a "Ham Museum" in Madrid, which we ventured inside, briefly, but there was no Ham Tree, so we didn't stay...



And that about wraps up our first day full of travel, but not much sleep.