Spain Trip

I headed to Spain at the end of April for a work trip. Yes, I left Eric to fend for himself yet again, but he didn't break anything this time! I went to Europe all by my lonesome this trip (I'm all grown up)! Traveling by yourself has its ups and downs. I like having the freedom to do whatever I'm in the mood for, but it's not very fun sightseeing without someone else to share it with. 

I left on Saturday and arrived in Madrid early Sunday morning. The flight to Madrid was completely full and, having only booked my flight a couple weeks earlier, I was stuck in a middle seat. Normally I sleep so easily on planes, but I could not fall asleep for the life of me. It really messed with my "flawless" sleep plan. 

Sunday morning I took a cab to my hotel in Madrid and slept for a few hours. I didn't want to sleep too long because I still had to go back to bed that night. Plus, Sunday was my fun day and if I was going to see anything in Spain I had to get my butt out of bed. After asking the front desk where I should go, I took another cab to the city center. I absolutely loved my cab drivers. Just an FYI, cab drivers in Spain don't speak English but most of them try (just like I tried to speak Spanish). Attempting to communicate was one of the best parts of Spain. Eric will come in handy when we go back. 

Puerta del Sol

Is it just me, or does the Spain version of Mickey look really creepy?

 The city center is basically an area full of shops and restaurants. I don't like shopping by myself, so I was at a loss. I still walked around for a bit to get the "experience."

Lots and lots of pigs hanging from the ceiling

 I saw a lot of tourists taking pictures in front of this statue and I know I've seen the symbol some place before. It has to be important so of course I did what any smart tourist traveling by themselves would do -- I copied what everyone else was doing. 

 Any idea what the significance is?

It didn't take long for me to get bored wandering around by myself. I decided to take the advise of a co-worker and got on a tour bus. Apparently it's the fastest way to see a city when you are short of time. 

There's me!

 Now let me just tell you, I was running on a few hours of sleep and history was my least favorite subject in school. So...a tour bus to learn about all these historical sites in a country I didn't grow up learning about was good and bad. It was good because I was able to sit down and not have to think about where to go next. It was bad because I can't recall a thing that was said during the tour. Literally, I have no idea what I was looking at the entire two hours or so. It was pretty boring listening to a recorder explain a bunch of sites I was too tired to care about. 

But the artist in me enjoyed the architecture!

 Ooh, this is Christopher Columbus!! That's the only part I absorbed because I've actually heard of him :)

I'm pretty sure this is a Palace of some sort.

Graffiti love. 

Outdoor preaching? I guess it WAS a Sunday. 

City view.

 I'll be honest, I wasn't a fan of Madrid. Having seen the architecture in London, Madrid seemed like just another European city to me. On Monday, I worked all day with Steve, the sales guy I support, and then we took a train 2 hours south to Valencia, then rented a car and drove another hour to a town called Denia. Now DENIA I could get used to. It's a small little tourist town and is so cute!!

This is the gorgeous ocean view I woke up to on Tuesday morning:

I loved looking in one direction and seeing blue water and turning the other direction to find beautiful mountains RIGHT THERE. It's not something you can get in the U.S. I definitely want to go back to Denia one day with Eric. Apparently this is a main European vacation spot. I can see why. 

On Tuesday we went to a client site in Denia where I sat in on a meeting with the head honchos and toured the hospital. Then Steve and I drove an hour back to the train station (Steve only ALMOST drove on the wrong side of the road once), took the 2 hour train to Madrid, and hopped on a flight to London. BUSY BUSY!!