Hotel Mercedes Aranjuez

... turned off. We went to the oober helpful -___- lady at the front desk. Then we had dinner, a typical American style dining, hot dogs, pizza, salad. Some of the hot dogs had white, creamy stuff coming out of it, maybe flavoring, but I won't go into that, ladies. I couldn't complain, dinner at 9 pm was way later than what I was accustomed to, so I eagerly chomped down on some hot dog and ...

LLegamos a MAdrid a eso de las 6 de la mańana. Partimos del Aeropuerto a encontarrnos con Jaimito, en la estación de buses desde dónde tomaríamos en bus hacia Barcelona por la Noche. Salimos a recorrer algo de Madrid, que ya conocíamos los 3. Almorzamos en un restorán en el Barrio de Chueca y de ahí partimos al terminal de buses. El cansancio fue mayor y decidimos partir antes a Barcelona. Nos fuimos en un bus/congelador, del q' nos tuvimos que cambiar a mitad del viaje.

Wed 2 April Overnight at Cate and Paul´s in Forest Gate, then a 03.30 whiz round an empty M25 to Heathrow. Check in at the squashed ceiling of Terminal 2, interminable wait in Weatherspoon´s to get breakfast and finally the Iberia flight to Madrid. No free offerings on this flight - didn´t know Iberia was the equivalent of EasyJet! Lunch in a very pleasant Madrid airport and then realised we´d been allocated seats on the same aisle, but on opposite sides of the plane. Long chaotic ...

... the art of making one drink last for an hour. This evening we are planning to go to the Prado art museum as it is free from 6-8. We will then go back to the campsite and are attempting our first Tapas recipe out of book. Just to let you know it is currently about 25degrees with not a cloud in the sky and we are both going brown! Hope you are all well, please keep the messages coming. Lots of love xxxxxxx

So my first stuff up of the trip... Of course you know I went off and got myself a new sim card for europe. Naturally I don´t know the number off by heart yet, so I send the number to my host in Madrid and to other people i am hoping to meet up with... So yesterday about 6 i send my host a text message letting him know that I won´t ...

... the worn-out ball spilled into the road or down the subway steps, when he yelled "Ball!" and desperately, unthankfully waited for pedestrians to throw it to him - which they always obligingly did. A moustachioed, alcoholic-looking, English-countryside-looking man, whose bed was a bench, who could've been the other's father bum, sporadically yelled out unintelligible somethings. I think they were Irish. The last memorable moment ...

... which as always was pretty cool to see. Very modern, lots of glass, interesting forms and high tech. The louvers on the outside of the building have some type of mechanical system that makes them move to adjust the light / heat in the building. We walked by quite a few other museums and interesting buildings but the only other one we went to ...

... interesting details or explanations of the palace. She just walked us around a few rooms and chambers describing what they were who slept there and blah blah blah. So I decided I was going to block out her ****** explanations and walk around with Ed taking pictures and enjoying the details for myself. I did however pay attention to the must-know details like who it was comissioned for, and who later remodelled it, and what ...

... nad ústím Amazonky, určitě nad Manausem a pak uz se stmívá, mensí turbulence nad Andami a přistáváme v Peru. Vyplnění imigračního dotazníku bylo poměrně jednoduché, trochu jsem zaváhal nad otázkou, zda dovázíme nějaké zemědělské produkty, ale nakonec jsem uznal, ze slivovici tím asi nemyslí. Pasová kontrola v pohodě, batohy nastěstí dorazily oba a vcelku, celní kontrola ...

... no time to buy food, water, batteries for my CD player-nothing for my flight. When I got to Toronto, it was more of a nightmare, but what else could I expect? I had to retrieve my luggage from the belt (despite the fact that the lady told me it would checked in through to KC), put it onto another belt so that it would go to another building. Then, I had to take a shuttle bus to the other building, walk the length of the building all the way to US Customs ...