Madrid - Day 42

Alright, I don't know why I didn't post this entry while I was posting the rest of my pictures from Spain, but I'll finally post it now.

My trip to Spain ended with a bit more excitement than I would have preferred...I was supposed to fly back from Bilbao to Madrid, and Madrid to Munich on Sunday, May 9.  That morning, Emily and I went pretty much straight to the airport...my flight out of Bilbao wasn't until 1:30ish, but it took an hour or so to get to the airport from Emily's room and I was supposed to be there a couple hours early.  But that's beside the point.  We got to the Bilbao airport without any problems, said goodbye, and I got through security, to my gate, and on the plane without any problems.  The flight from Bilbao to Madrid even had no problems.  

The problems started in Madrid.  I had about an hour and a half between when I landed in Madrid and when I should have boarded my plane to Munich, but when I got to Madrid, my next gate wasn't announced yet.  I walked around a bit, got a snack, and finally found my gate once it was announced.  It seemed a bit oddly empty, but I didn't think too much of it until a group of German business people came over and sat down near me...and suddenly I heard the words "Vulkan" (not to be confused with Vulcan) and "der Flughafen ist geschlossen".  Meaning: something to do with the volcano and that the airport was closed.  NOT GOOD.  This was two weeks after the volcano up in Iceland had caused seemingly most European airports to shut down, so I was hoping that I was safe.  No such luck.  Southern German airports were closed due to ash clouds and poor visibility, which of course included Munich.  All flights were canceled.  Again, not good!  After panicking for a bit, standing in line for more than a bit, and visiting about four different help desks, I got a stand-by seat on the first flight to Munich on Monday morning and a hotel room for the night.  Still not very reassuring, since even if the flight was able to take off, I wasn't guaranteed a seat.  At my fourth information desk, I think I looked so pitiful and close to tears that the woman had pity on me and gave me a seat on the flight.  After that I pretty much gave up and decided to just go to the hotel.  

Which turned out to be a fabulous idea, since the hotel turned out to be one of the nicest place I stayed the whole four months I was in Europe.  All expenses paid by the airline, including transportation between the airport and hotel, dinner at the hotel, the room itself, breakfast the next morning, and transportation back to the airport Monday morning.  So yeah, great hotel room:

The bed was literally wider than I am tall:

The bathroom was no joke either:

I even got my own balcony :)

 

This was all I got to see of Madrid, but it was 8pm by the time I got to the hotel, so I figured I shouldn't wander into the city on my own...

So, I had a great night in a great hotel...and you'd think that would be the end of the problems, right?  Not quite.  I set my alarm for 6:00am (actually, I set it for 5:50, 6:00, 6:10, 6:20, and 6:30 since my cell phone had 5 alarms).  My new flight Monday morning was at 8:30, so I needed to be at the airport by 7:30, leaving the hotel by 7:00.  Free breakfast started at 6:30, so I wanted to give myself time to pack up, check email on the hotel computer, get breakfast, and leave the hotel by 6:50 (thinking I should leave a little early, just in case).  But did I wake up at 6?  No!  I slept through all FIVE of my alarms and woke up at 6:48.  I literally threw on the first clothes I found, threw everything else in my bag, and ran downstairs.  Luckily, the group of German business people who were on my original flight were also in the hotel and had already called for the hotel van to get to the airport, so I was able to ride with them and make it to the airport on time.  They even complimented me on my German when I talked a bit with them.

Again, you'd think that would be the end of the problems, right?  Again, NO!  Once at the airport, we boarded the plane relatively on time, and then proceeded to sit there for about 40 minutes.  And then came my favorite announcement in the world: something on the plane wasn't functioning correctly, so we had to de-board the plane, go to the opposite end of the terminal, and re-board an entirely new plane.  Needless to say, it took awhile for a new plane to be ready, so we stood around waiting quite a while:

Meanwhile, I got to know the airport terminal pretty well:

Finally, two hours later, we finally, FINALLY took off and made it back to Munich by mid-afternoon.  So, yeah.  That was my trip from Bilbao back to Munich.  Not my favorite 24 hours of my time in Germany, but definitely adventurous!

Back in the real world!

Well, I think it's official...I've re-entered the real world...at least mostly.  After three weeks at home and a full week of classes back at Mary Washington, I don't think I can deny it any longer...though believe me, I wish I could!  Don't get me wrong, it's great to be back, and to see everybody both at home and at Mary Washington...especially Salty...but I'm not quite ready to be back here in reality.  Classes are already in full swing and homework is quickly going to pile up, and I didn't even finish any of the projects I wanted to while I was home.  I didn't finish updating this blog, I didn't finish putting together a scrapbook with all my pictures (but I did narrow down my almost 10,000 pictures to just 740 that I want to print, which I think is quite an accomplishment), and I didn't finish cleaning my room or going through all of my college stuff (much to my mom's annoyance).  So yeah...it's been a slow road back to real life, and I think I'm already planning my next trip back to Germany.  I don't know when and I don't know how, but it will happen!  Meanwhile, in between everything else that I should be doing, I'm finally going to put up some more pictures and maybe eventually I'll catch up!

Around Neguri - Day 41

My last hurrah in Spain (or at least I thought it would be my last hurrah in Spain...but more on that later...) was one final walk around Neguri on Saturday night (8 May) after getting back from the beach.  We didn't do anything in particular, other than getting dinner, going to an internet cafe to check on my flights, and then just kind of strolling around for a bit.

There were some giant houses by the beach...

The houses around the bay-like-thing:

Puppy!

He was just kind of chilling there while his owners were fishing...I miss Salty!

Emily and I both took a billion and five pictures...

Finally, I took these pictures for Grandpa Harry:

I don't speak Spanish, but I think I can guess what this says...

And for the last time...

After one last view of the beach, we headed back to Emily's room and spent the rest of the night packing up my stuff and watching a chick flick.  What better way to end a great day at the beach and a great weekend in Spain?

Sunshine! - Day 41

I am so close to finishing all my posts about Spain that I can almost taste it!  Not that posting about my trip to Spain isn't fun, but once I finish this trip, I can start posting about all my other trips and maybe, maybe, maybe finally get caught up with my blog.  Maybe.

So anyway...

After our lovely little hike in Plentzia, Emily and I walked around a little bit more and ambled our way back to the train station to catch the train to Neguri.  Along the way, the sun finally came out for real (it had peeked out of the clouds several times, but for the first time, it actually stayed out) and so I had some fun taking pictures in the lovely sunlight.

 There's no purpose to this picture other than to show that our shadows finally came out to play for a bit...after rain all day Friday and clouds most of Saturday, it was nice to see shadows again!

These trees were really cool...the branches of the separate trees all grew together!  I tried to get a good picture of it, but these were the best I could get... 

Notice the beautiful blue sky! 

You can't see it too well in any of these pictures, but all of the trees along the row were connected...it was really cool.

A couple more views of the town, this time with the sun shining and a bright blue sky:

That's all I have for our trip to the beach, but I still have a few more pictures from Neguri - after we got back from the beach we got dinner and walked around Neguri again.  So, still more pictures of Spain to come, but I'm getting closer...

Hiking at the beach - Day 41

After exploring the main part of the beach at Plentzia, Emily and I got lunch at a little restaurant that was pretty much right on the beach, and then Emily decided she wanted to find out what these stairs led to:

We ended up spending a couple hours hiking (for lack of a better word...it wasn't as strenuous as hiking usually implies) around this little hill/cliff thing that was along the right side of the u-shaped beach.  The pictures don't need too much narration, since they're mostly just views we got of the beach and the ocean:

Emily and me looking cute with our umbrellas:

It rained just a little bit as we got started, but then it cleared up for the rest of the time. 

Most of the path was really easy, but this part made my knees hurt...there wasn't that much room between where Emily was walking and where the cliff dropped off...

...I let her go ahead to see if the path got easier...I don't think it did, so she came back and we found another way to go up. 

 
More great views:

 

The last bit of the path up to the tippy-top:


Emily went a bit ahead of me again...we actually ended up going to the top another way because the path got too narrow again:


Views from the top (or at least as far up as we were able to go...I think it was the top):

On our way back down again:

I love how clear and blue the water looked, even from as high up as we were:

A look at the town and the beach:

Once we made it back down to the bottom, we tried to take a picture of the two of us with the hill in the background, but since I was trying to take the picture myself, they all ended up looking really goofy...so here's a picture of just the hill - imagine that Emily and I are standing in front of it...