Friday and Saturday, June 23 and 24 Flying to Spain

Left home at 6:00 am for our flight to Dulles, then on to Madrid.  No one slept on the plane, but everyone was well behaved.  Arrived in Madrid.  

Josh conked out immediately on the taxi ride to the train station.  The train station was spectacular, with a huge greenhouse type roof and a tropical garden inside.  

We had vouchers for the train tickets to Seville that we had booked in advance.  However, the tickets needed to be gotten elsewhere, so Mary and Jessica took a taxi to retrieve them.  Everyone has been really helpful – a lady at the airport told us which station to go to for the tickets.

Jessica, who took some Spanish in school, has been doing great at translating for us – taxi drivers, waiters, station attendants, etc.

The train ride was great - very smooth, but a little chilly.  The countryside on the train ride to Seville reminded us of California with scrub brush and farms in the flat lands and rolling chaparral hills.  Biggest difference was the occasional hill topped with a castle ruin. 

2.5 hour train ride – Josh slept the whole way.  

There was no place to get rooms at the train station, so we took a taxi to the tourist information place.  We got a map; however, the information center was closing and couldn’t help us finding with a room.  

The Tourist Information Building

However, we found a hotel by using a girl hawking in front of the tourist office.  She led us to the hotel (Hostal Sierpas).  Good price, nice location, lots of narrow winding streets.  Very close to the cathedral.  

We went out to an early dinner at a sidewalk café.  Feeding Josh may be a challenge.  The milk was warm and the hamburger patty was weird.  

We all crashed early, around 5:30 pm.