Como estas?

Thursday - March 8

This morning I decided against going to Italian. Nicoletta said we weren't having a quiz, and since we weren't I decided to use one of my 3-4 unexcused absences. I slept in a little more than I normally would have been able to, showered, and went to the train station to meet Amy and Bethany. 

I was about five minutes later than when we were going to meet, but when I got there neither of them were there. I figured they would be coming soon since they lived together. 

While I was standing in front of McDonald's waiting a guy a little older than me came up to me and starting saying things in Italian. The first words out of his mouth were "Ciao bella," and I wrote him off. Petra told us to not pay attention to guys when they say that because they are automatically hitting on you. I just acted like I knew very little Italian because I really didn't want to talk to him. He kept trying and talking to me and I was obviously friendly. I found it kind of entertaining. Then when we was saying goodbye he played with my hair and walked away. I was thinking, "Dear God, Bethany and Amy hurry up." I decided to just walk around instead of standing in one place because I didn't want something like that to happen again. 

Amy and Bethany showed abut about 10 minutes later. We went to go buy our train tickets. When we looked up the time it said the next train left in four minutes. Of course. So we bought the tickets and went out to look at the board to find out the platform. Amy ran to get our ticket validated at the yellow machine and Bethany and I started power walking. Amy caught up and then we went into a full run to catch our train. Once we sat down we exhaled, happy to have made the train. If we missed the train, we would miss our flight, so it was cutting it close. Then of course the train didn't leave for another five minutes.

About a half hour into the train ride we started thinking we were on the wrong train because the scenery looked a little different than normal. But thankfully we pulled into Pisa Centrale. Bethany asked someone in the same car as us if this train went all the way to the airport. He said no, so we hopped off the train. Thank goodness she asked because we were going to stay on it and hope it did. Some trains will go directly to the station and some do not. It's odd. 

We walked into the station and looked up connecting trains. It was 1:00 and the next train didn't leave until 1:38. This posed a problem because we were getting closer to our flight time, which was 2:50 and the gates closed at 2:20. We didn't know if that would be enough time to get through security and get our tickets stamped. 

So we went into the information desk area and asked about a bus shuttle instead. It was cheaper and came within the next 10 minutes. We went to the ticket desk, bought one-way tickets and walked outside to the bus stop. There was a green line, blue line and red line. We were supposed to get on the red line so we stood in the red line bus stop. For a while there wasn't a red bus and then we saw one drive away. After standing there in a bit of confusion, Bethany crossed the street and asked two bus drivers where we should pick up the red bus. We were standing in the wrong spot, so we got in the right one and within a few minutes the bus appeared.

We squished on and the bus took us about a 10 minute drive to the airport. Once we arrived we went to go get our tickets stamped. Bethany and I got ours, but Amy ran into a problem. When she and Bethany tried printing and checking in online earlier this morning, only Amy's return boarding pass printed and not her outbound one. All of Bethany's printed, which was odd. She was directed to the ticket office to talk to them. 

After talking for a few minutes Amy turned around to us and said "I have to pay €70 to get my outbound boarding pass." She sounded very irritated. What happened was she and Bethany had printed out their boarding passes and checked in online very close to the four hour marker. You can check in 15 days and up to four hours before you leave. If you don't, now we know what happens. You pay extra charges for not being on time. 

It was really odd though that her return printed and not her out bound one. She decided to pay it because she didn't want to have to go home after already buying her ticket and packing. I felt really bad, but there was nothing any of us could do. The woman was really patient with Amy, but her hands were tied too. She couldn't print it out for her and said it was just the rules. 

After that debacle, we went back to the check in like where Amy got her ticket stamped and we hopped in line for the security. Poor Amy. Her bag got held up because she packed a full bottle of body wash, which they had to throw out. She said she was so used to traveling by train that she forgot she couldn't pack liquids higher than 3 oz. 

We then hopped in line and waited for about 15 minutes until they started boarding the plane. We hopped on a shuttle which took us to the plane. It thankfully wasn't like the Krakow shuttle where it took you three feet. This one actually took us farther away from our gate. As we were walking up the stairs Amy realized we had to show our tickets again to the flight attendants. She couldn't find her ticket. So I went in and grabbed us seats, praying she would find her ticket. I was thinking to myself that maybe this was just one of many signs that we shouldn't be going to Madrid. Luckily she found it and they sat down next to me. 

Our plane was supposed to leave at 2:50, but didn't end up leaving until 3:30. We sat behind two planes for a while waiting for them to take off. It was odd. I've never sat in a line waiting to take off. Usually the plane just goes. 

Once we were finally in the air it was a beautiful sight. I didn't realize Pisa was so close to the ocean. We started flying over the water and I fell in love with it. The water was so blue and clear. It was a beautiful sight.

About an hour and 40 minutes later we arrived in Madrid. We had made it. Then realization sat in. "Crap, we are at one of the biggest airports in the world." It took the plane forever to drive to the place where we were going to be let off at. I also could tell it was going to be a big airport because we didn't walk off the plane onto the ground, we walked right into the building through a tunnel. 

We just followed everyone as we walked through the airport and eventually found our way. Bethany and I were starving so we stopped at a grab and go place in the airport. Amy was feeling a little sick from the landing. When we were up in the air we hit some pretty bad turbulance. I actually started shaking because our plane dropped a little bit and my stomach went like it does on a roller coaster...except this wasn't a "fun" stomach drop.

After our quick lunch we went to the information desk to find out how to get to the city center. The woman was extremely nice and helpful. She directed us to the metro station and we headed on our merry way.

When we got to the station, which was connected to the airport, we got our tickets and wandered to our platform. We only had to get off at one station to connect to another metro, so it wasn't too hard to navigate through. Over the summer I went to D.C. with Kory for the day and we picked up on the metro system pretty quickly, so I felt confident going into this one. Bethany said she also mastered the one is Paris, so we were all in good hands.

When I walked up the stairs from the metro to the city I was shocked. I pictured Madrid to be kind of like Poland with it's quaintness, but I also pictured it with a western atmosphere. I have no idea why, but that's what I imagined. What I saw made me all giddy inside. We were on Grand Via, one of the main streets of the city. It was seriously like NYC with it's moving billboards, cars everywhere and people everywhere. I find it funny because I cannot stand crowds and being smushed with people I don't know, but for some odd reason I love busy cities and the "go, go, go" atmosphere. Madrid was exactly like that.

We wandered a little bit up the street to find our hostel, but the numbers weren't adding up to where ours would be. We realized the numbers were odd on the side we were on and on the other side they were even, which is where ours would be. So we crossed the street and entered this beautiful building.

The inside of the building was gorgeous with spiral stairs and an old fashioned elevator. The hostel wasn't as nice, but it made do. We checked in, paid for the hostel and had to place a €10 deposit for the keys to the hostel building, which we would get back at the end.

We were shown to our room where we met two of our roommates. Our room slept six people, so it left room for three other strangers to sleep with us. It was a bit awkward at first as we were getting settled in, but then we started talking to the two other girls.

We learned the two girls were Australian and we backbacking through Europe. Ashley had been back backing since July. She had been to a plethora of places and said she would meet people in hostels and go travel with them somewhere next. It sounded awesome. I would love to think I'd be that free-spirited, but I don't think I'd have it in me to do it alone.

Her sister was the other Australian, whose name I cannot remember. She met up with Ashley in February and was taking time two months off of work to travel around Europe. Shnikes! I would love to find a job that would let me take two months off to just go travel. They both have their degrees already and Ashley said she is trying to do as much as she can until she absolutely has to go home.

They unfortunately weren't going to be our roommates for the entire weekend because they were leaving in the morning for Portugal. They were going there for a week and then off to Barcelona. Oh the life.

Our other roommate wasn't there when we arrived, but the girls said he was friendly but reserved, which was fine by me.

Bethany, Amy and I decided to venture out to find food. Amy realized she hadn't eaten anything since the morning, so she was starving. It was probably around 7 when we left and we didn't sit down to eat until 9.

We first stopped at an information desk in the city to obtain some maps and advice on things to see while staying here. We decided we wanted to go to the "old city" because the woman told us that area had good tapas, which are small plates of food people normally share. Boy oh boy was this an adventure. We tried following the map and for some odd reason we kept going in every direction but the correct one we needed. We would turn on a street and think we were going the right way until we got to an intersection and check the map only to find out we were going the wrong direction again.

We eventually ended up in a plaza where we saw something that looked like it would have good food. We stopped in and looked at the menu, but Amy wasn't feeling it so we decided to look elsewhere. When we walked back out into the plaza there was chanting and signs waving with a ton of people. We were really confused but soon realized it was probably a riot of some sort so we went the opposite direction.

By the time 9 rolled around I was exhausted from the travel, cold and hungriness. Not a good combination for me. I was slowly getting grumpy, but thankfully we stumbled on a good restaurant. I asked the waiter "habla ingles?" He said no, but pointed down the stairs.

We walked down the flight of stairs and saw there was more seating. A sign said to please wait to be seating in Spanish, but Amy translated it for us. Thank goodness for her five years of high school Spanish. A woman came up to us and started speaking Spanish. Amy could only get a little of what she was saying, but then a another waiter came over and helped us. It was probably very clear we were American and struggling to communicate. He helped us to a table and told us when we knew what we wanted to eat, we would write the number on the chalkboard. It was a different want of doing it. I wish that's how it was at Aladdin's...then I wouldn't even have to take people's orders.

I ordered fried goat cheese to share with Bethany and fried wild mushrooms with garlic with Amy. It was all very, very good. The mushrooms had a weird texture to it, so I stopped halfway through, but the goat cheese and raspberry jam sent my taste buds on a frenzy. SO good.

I also ordered a beer...I don't know what it was called because the waiter just called it beer. It was probably the best beer I have ever had, and I'm not a beer person by any means. I can never tell the different between different kinds, but it was by far the best.

After dinner we decided to of course get dessert! Bethany and Amy got chocolate lava cake and an apple tart and I got ducle de leche, which was yummy :)

After we finished up dinner and finally got the bill we decided to head home. It had been a rough day for Amy and we were all pretty tired from the constant traveling. We got back to the hostel around 11:30 and crashed for the night.