Team Lost arrives in Madrid

I may have mentioned this before, but in case you didn’t catch it, I left for Spain Sunday evening! I haven’t done a lot of travelling, and certainly have not been overseas – Toronto has been the extent of my international travel. So last year, when Sara and John decided to hold their wedding in Spain and asked me to be their photographer, I jumped at the opportunity to spend a week or so in this amazing country. I really had no idea what to expect, and my emotions this past week preparing to leave have been a mixture of excitement and anxiety. I don’t speak Spanish at all, but can make out some of the written words (but we do have a Spanish phrase book – no worries there!). Luckily, Jared can understand some Spanish but Sara can speak the language and has been great at translating for us, (dumb) Americans.

So we flew out of the Miami airport on Sunday evening, taking the red-eye to London’s Heathrow Airport. One meal, one (free!) glass of wine, a movie, and a bit of restless sleep and we were in London. We sprinted to our next flight and made it to the gate just as they were boarding our flight to Madrid. Two hours later, we were in Spain! After finding our hotel, we spent the afternoon wandering around the city. We visited Plaza del Sol and Plaza Mayor, where we met up with John’s brother and had lunch. Did I mention that lunch here is late (2-3pm), followed by siesta (everything closes until 5pm or so) and that dinner isn’t until 9pm? Not to mention that the sun stays up until at least 9:30-10pm, making it feel so much earlier in the day.

We wandered around some more, briefly visiting the Palace and finally making our way through the back streets of Madrid (meat markets, fish markets, and random small stores) to the Riena Sophia art museum. We rested a bit in the square, people watching (one of my favorite things to do!) It seemed as if every child had a soccer ball, and this seemed like a place for families to congregate in the evening to socialize while their children play. The museum was beautiful and had work by Dali and Picasso, including Picasso's Guernica. After struggling a bit (and naming ourselves Team Lost) we managed to find the bus stop to take us back to the hotel. We grabbed a quick dinner and crashed, tired from a long day of walking and travelling and jet lag.

Some quick photos from Madrid (more to come, I promise!):

Part of Plaza Mayor

Awesome shot by Jared, looking out of the plaza into one of the small streets, taken from the cafe where we had lunch.

This was a small bookstore on one of the small side streets. LOVE it!

And one last shot:

The view from where I wrote this blog post. Don't hate, but that's the Mediterranean out there... If it was clear, we'd be able to see Africa.