Joel and I had an absolutely fabulous trip to Spain. It was amazing! We saw so many incredible things, and I loved returning to the country I love so dearly. Sadly, things were going a little too well, and they came crashing down on the way home. I lost my camera in the Madrid airport. Even writing about it makes me physically ill. I took it out and put it in the bucket for security, but I'm pretty sure it didn't make it to the plane. I think it got left on a seat at the gate. When we landed in Washington, D.C. I realized I didn't have it, and I went straight to customer service. They checked the plane for me, and then I called the lost and found at Terminal 1 for the Madrid airport, but no camera was found. I basically cried the whole way home from D.C., because I was heartbroken to lose so many irreplaceable pictures. I've officially sent in claims paperwork both through the airport and the airlines, but at this point I'm pretty sure it was stolen. I'm trying to not let it cloud my experience, because we had a wonderful time. Luckily, some friends asked me to post pictures online everyday, and I will be forever grateful they did, because the pictures on my phone are all I have left. I still want to do the best I can chronicling the vacation, because without the pictures it's even more important to me that I write down my memories.
Here goes: Day 1- it started out rough, because our very first flight was delayed 2 hours, so we missed our connecting flight to Toronto. We ran the whole way to the next terminal to find the plane still at the gate but closed to boarding. It was really frustrating and I think Joel and I both got shin splints from the experience. Tee hee. They finally rerouted us onto a flight to Munich and back over to Madrid. We arrived 9 hours later than planned, but we were so happy to just finally be there. Gratefully, neither of us experienced any jetlag on the way there. We picked up our rental car, and then we decided to still make an abbreviated stop in Toledo even though we needed to get to Granada that evening.
Toledo is an hour south of Madrid and is a very popular tourist destination. The entire town has actually been declared a national monument. It has picturesque cobbled streets and is home to the capital of the Spanish Catholic Church. It also happened to be the home of El Greco, a famous Spanish artist. I wanted Joel to see this Cathedral because it's seriously magnificent. It took 267 years to build and was completed in 1493. This picture is the high altar:
Because of our short time we only had time to tour the cathedral, but we grabbed marzapan on our way back to the car. Mazapán was originally made by the nuns in Toledo and is an almondy-fruity-sweet that I love. We got the small assortment, so Joel could try the different types of mazapán.
We drove another hour South to Consuegra. This small town is home to Manchego cheese and the famous windmills of Don Quijote. Joel got his first lesson in narrow, winding roads that are not even remotely marked well and usually have a blind spot when turning. We almost got ran over a garbage truck at one point. It's all part of the European-driving experience.
We continued South to Granada to stay the night. The roads were lined with grove after grove of olive trees. It was beautiful. Even though we got in a lot later than we had originally planned we were surprisingly not overly tired.
love the pictures
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