I’m home safe and sound in Arizona. I suppose, seeing as I’ve been dormant for so long, that I should make a humongous blog post about my trip to Spain.

Well, here goes.

I’ll try and write in a chronological order, but don’t scream at me if I’m off somewhat. I’m also not feeling very inspired, so I hope you don’t get too bored. If you don’t want to read, just look at the photos which I will upload eventually.

After staying a night in a hotel in Phoenix and getting maybe 2 hours of sleep, we got a taxi to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), known to us Phoenicians as The Airport. We needed to catch a flight to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), known to Phoenicians as Jesus-Fucking-Christ-Why-Can’t-I-Just-Go-Directly-From-Here, which left at 8:15 AM.
We got to The Airport at around 6:30 AM, got through security, and waited at the gate.

When we boarded the plane, I was supposed to get a window seat. You know, with a window. Instead, I got a seat by a plastic wall with no window. The closest windows required you to break your neck to look out of. No personal entertainment on the plane, only boring movies and shows on magnetically damaged screens, so it was the longest 4 hours of my life. Fortunately, we sat next to a very interesting man. A pilot, working for Warren Buffet (he didn’t say, but I think he flies for Netjets), and had the gift of gab. I probably learned more in that 4 hours than I have in a year of school. He helped me not die of boredom.

We arrived at Jesus-Fucking-Christ-Why-Can’t-I-Just-Go-Directly-From-Here (ATL) and waited some more. I’ve realized now that life is mostly spent waiting.

The flight to Madrid was okay. Decent seats, decent food, no sleep. 9 hours of trying to sleep with no success. Shit, it’s gonna be a long day.

We arrive at Madrid T-1, and get out of there as fast as we can. We have a 7 hour layover, and we want to spend it in someplace interesting. We want to spend it in T-4 (!!!!!1!!!1!1!!!). Hours and hours and hours pass with no confirmed gate, and I spot a little Iberian Airbus land about an hour before our flight should board. Surely enough, we get a gate… at the other side of the (massive) terminal.

After a very turbulent flight to Alicante and a lovely landing (props to the pilot, whoever you are), we meet up with James, Michael and Richard. Memory of this day is a little fuzzy, but I know I took a nice nap!

The next day is James’s graduation ceremony. It’s long, it’s boring, it’s mostly in Spanish. The meal afterward was yummy, though. An umpteen-billion course meal at the Hotel Sidi San Juan. We were at a table with some French-speaking twins, whom Sarah seemed to like quite a lot and I believe they liked her, too! So naturally, we’ve been teasing her about them.
Afterwards, I managed to drag James along to go party with his graduating class. We went to a club in the city, which had disgusting bathrooms, loud music, and cheap booze. Nobody checked ID there, so I felt pretty cool. We didn’t need to buy any drinks, as his friends just offered us sips of whatever they were having. We got bored quickly, but it was still fun while it lasted. And yes, we did dance a little bit.

I’ll have you all know now that I’ll only be mentioning the highlights of the trip. I won’t go into amazing detail about every day.

We stayed in Alfaz del Pi for the majority of the trip (as opposed to being in San Juan for the first few days), which is located near lots of beaches and shopping places. We went to Terra Natura, a zoo, and the adjacent Aqua Natura, a waterpark. Today, it becomes apparent that my bikini is a little, erm…. too big. As in, if I sit a certain way, my boobs are visible for all to see. So, we plan on going shopping the next day.
Which we do. I found two nice bikinis for about $30 total. We also found James and I some sandals (omg, shoes!).

James’s parents took us to some neat little places, such as Villajoyosa and Calpe, both of which had shopping (!!11!!) and beaches! Villajoyosa had a great beach, the water was extremely warm and lovely. Calpe was nice as well, very touristy. Later on in the week we went on a walk on a trail leading to a lighthouse, which we didn’t go down all the way, but it had lovely views of Albir and the coastline.

We spent most of the trip swimming, walking, shopping and eating. While it may sound boring, it really wasn’t. Sure, we didn’t do much from a tourist’s perspective, but I still had a wonderful time. If I were to blog about every detail, it would bore even myself. Eat, sleep, swim, shop, swim more, etc. Maybe the photos I took will interest you more? Or maybe I should just talk about Madrid.

Ah yes, Madrid!

As you may or may not know, we had to stay a night in Madrid in order to catch the flight back to Atlanta without dying of sleep deprivation (which we did die of anyway, but more on that later).
Like the flight to Alicante, the flight to Madrid was extremely turbulent. We could only see whiteness out of the windows for the majority of the flight, which was very eerie.
After landing in Madrid, I remembered that whoever built T-4 had a brain in their head. Us passengers unloaded right where all the shopping is. Yes! We needed to buy some touristy bags with “Madrid” or “España” written on them, for ourselves and my grandfather’s wonderfully transsexual caretaker who requested one. I would have bought some while we were there for those 7 hours, but by the time I found them our plane had a gate confirmed. So I was praying that we could go back to the shop and get them!

We purchased some bags at the “Thinking España “shop which clever little me found again, and went to find a taxi. It was by no means difficult finding a taxi, there was actually a MASSIVE line of them outside of T-4. While convenient, they were extremely expensive. They charged by time, not distance. Every 10 seconds or so the fare went up 5 cents. It ended up being around 29€ with the tip. We stayed at the Petit Palace Alcala Torre (did I spell that right? Hope so). Walking distance from the Plaza Mayor, it was right in the heart of Madrid. Madrid Madrid Madrid. What a lovely, beautiful city. And oh is it busy. Busy busy busy busy busy. It reminded me of what the movies make New York out to be, only with smaller streets.
You see, in Madrid the smaller streets are shared by people and cars. The people hope the cars slow down, and the cars hope the people get the fuck out of the way.

So anyway, back to the hotel and stuff. Nice hotel. Very modern-looking, despite the absolutely TINY elevators. The rooms were cool, had a laptop with free internet by ethernet, which I stole as the wifi was weird and weak. The laptop ran Debian Linux, which was locked down and basically unhackable. We managed to open some other apps, but nothing could be permanently modified. Major props to them for that. Oh, we also got a free little bottle of Irish whiskey in our room!

We remembered that the Plaza Mayor district is home to Sobrino de Botín, the oldest restaurant in the world. We asked the hotel receptionist for directions, and he handed us a weird map with the locations of us and the restaurant pointed out. We finally managed to read it correctly, and made our way to the Plaza Mayor. It was filled with restaurants, shops and performers. The most notable performer was a man playing a very primitive looking bowed string instrument. He was very good, so I decided to give him a 2€ coin. He grinned and as I walked away, he called for me to come back. He sat me down and made me play! It’s a lot harder than it looks, guys, trust me. Yes, there’s a photo.
We finally found the Botín, and to our luck, it was closed. Siesta time, we should have known! It reopened in 2 hours, so we looked around for a bar to get something to drink and a snack. We had fried calamari, yummy.

After the hours passed, we walked to the Botín and waited for it to open. We talked with some other Americans, from North Carolina if I remember correctly. Nice people. Mom swears she recognized the woman. They said that they made reservations two weeks ago. Shit, we thought, we’ll never make it in. They open, and we decide to at least try to get a table. “Hi, we don’t have reservations.”
“How many people?”
“Three.”
“Right this way!”
Amazing looking restaurant, and equally amazing food. I’d recommend it to anyone.
A highlight of the meal was Mom and me getting a little tipsy off some yummy Sangria, and having a normally awkward conversation.

As our night in Madrid ended, we prepared for the long haul back home.

“RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING” is the sound we were awakened by. My phone’s alarm. 7AM. The streets of Madrid were frighteningly bare. The only people on the road were businessy, and the only cars were taxis. Good to know that the taxis are always about. We pack up, get dressed, and wake up.
“RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING,” ah shit, the wake up call, too? Better safe than sorry. The calls did work, we were definitely awake! Well, maybe not James, who was awake but in a zombie state.
As 7:40AM hit, the streets suddenly sprang to life. Stores opened, and people and cars flooded the place. Ah, that’s better. Thought there was a terrible disaster there for awhile!
We walked down to the Starbucks across the street for some food and coffee. I got a delicious chocolate cookie cheesecake, James got an espresso brownie, and Mom got some pastry thingy. Mom and I also got big coffees.

The taxi we had the hotel schedule for us arrives early, and we set off for the airport. What a frightening journey, Spanish people can’t drive!
We make it and look for our check-in place. Hmm, what are all these people doing standing around? There sure are a lot… what’s this? “Atlanta Check-in” well shit. We stood in line for a good 20 minutes and checked in. We found our gate, and waited.
We hear a PA, which normally we don’t care about, but this time we heard our names. “Will [names names names]… James Thewlis, Candice Chapman and Caitlin Chapman come to boarding desk immediately?” Shit, what did we do? Are we getting bumped up? Surely not!
We get to the desk, and our seats have been re-assigned… business class! Awesome! We board the plane, and James and I have seats 1A and 1B – the first seats on the plane. (Well, my mom had one, but her and James switched so we could sit together.) From here, I have a clear view of the cockpit, and I wanna take a photo. I get the balls to ask a flight attendant if I can go up and take a photo. “Sure,” she says, “just wait for her [another attendant] to get out.” The other attendant lets me in, and a male attendant jokes “Don’t let the pilots turn around, they might break your camera!”
So I get on the flight deck, and am greeted with big smiles from the crew. American pilots, extremely friendly. They smile for a photo, and the guy in the jumpseat offers to take a photo of me in the cockpit. I say sure! I figured he’d just take a photo of me standing, but instead, the captain gets out of his chair, and tells me “Sit down!” Huh? “Seriously?” I ask, excited. “Seriously!”
So I promise them I won’t touch anything, and the man in the jumpseat took a photo of me in the captain’s chair. Awesome!
It’s pretty cool to be able to say that I’ve been in the captain’s seat of a Boeing 767-400ER. (Yes, it was on the ground. )
I jokingly tell the pilots not to crash, and they reply with “Don’t worry, that’s not on our agenda!”

We get back to Atlanta after a nice yet sleepless flight, go through customs without any problems (although James got fingerprinted and his mugshot taken), and board the plane to Phoenix. Not a bad flight. This plane had personal entertainment and a proper window seat. There was a poor little boy cryyyyyying the whole time, but I tuned it out. Despite me purchasing an around-the-neck pillow in Atlanta, expecting to get some sleep on the plane, I arrived to Phoenix sleepless.

We de-board, grab our luggage and wait outside for my grandma to pick us up. A Polish man confronted us, wanting me to call his son (he had no phone), which I did after blocking my number. So that was my good deed for the day.
We discover that my grandpa “made some phone calls” regarding our upgrade, so here’s a biiiig thanks to him: THANKS!

We then left my grandparents’ house, went to Jack-In-The-Box to get stoner amounts of food. 4 tacos, a spicy chicken which was supposed to be a Sourdough Jack with Cheese (how does one mistake that for a spicy chicken?), a large order of fries and a large iced tea. We ate, and I finally managed to get some sleep. I woke up with drool all over the neck pillow, which was rather… gross.

So now we’re home, and I wish I hadn’t had to leave Spain so soon. Ah well, at least we have a James with us!

Here’s also a final thanks to James’s family, for showing us a lovely time: thank you! Hopefully we’ll see you here in the USA soon.