After we spent all night in America’s Friendliest Airport, we were finally able to check in at 4:30 am. We had managed to sleep for 1 hour, so we were pretty loopy by the time we got on the plane to charlotte. We sat next to a nice lady from Atlanta who retired in Raleigh, on her way home from visiting grandkids. She thought it was great that we were going to Spain to celebrate our anniversary.

We got to Charlotte on time, and went over to our new gate, where people were already being checked for passports and starting to board, so we had no time to get food or anything. The plane to Spain was a B767 with lots of clueless people on it. we sat at the back so we got to hear the flight attendants gossip. I slept pretty much the whole flight except for the meal service. David got a few hours of sleep on the plane. We got in to Madrid on time and taxied forever to the terminal, where we disembarked and then pretty much walked the whole length we had taxied to get to the metro station.

We then took the metro to the Banco de España station and walked down Paseo del Prado to our hotel. Getting off the metro immediately threw us in the midst of monumental architecture, and Paseo del Prado is still gorgeous. We got to the hotel, but there wouldn’t be rooms ready til 10:30, so we left our suitcases at the front desk and walked down to the Estacion de Atocha so David could see the nifty rainforest thing inside it. On the way down we saw a beautiful living wall.

We are now sitting at Atocha relaxing, waiting for 10:00, and sipping Café con Leche, wishing each other a happy anniversiary.