España!

We are back from Spain and we had a great time. I am now a firm believer in the "law of equilibrium" (I have to call it something and equilibrium seems appropriate). The law goes something like this: "In order to have a great trip, one has to go through some kind of trouble before hand, nothing major, just some kind of inconvenience. Once one pays his/her dues then everything else will be great".

I left as scheduled, there were no delays, and I arrived to Madrid on time, then... my bag did not show up!!! I waited, and waited, and my little red suitcase was nowhere to be seen. (see picture of carousel with no red bags whatsoever). I had three hours between my arrival at Barajas and the bus departure for Santander-Cantabria. I went to the lost luggage window (there is someone there 24/7, I wonder why!) and made my claim. When the attendant asked for the place where I would be staying so that they could send my suitcase over, I had to laugh! I was heading first to Santander, and then to a little town called Arenas de Iguña, population 1,927. Well, he wrote down all my information and sent me on my way with his assurance that I would get my bag "soon".

By the way the amazingly beautiful terminal 4 at Barajas airport was designed by Antonio Lamela and Richard Rogers (winning them the 2006 Stirling Prize).

I took the city bus to the bus terminal and made it there with 5 minutes to spare. When I got to the window all the tickets for the 7:00 pm bus were sold out. Next bus: midnight! I bought my ticket and called my friends to let them know of all my misadventures. I took the metro and went to Nuevos Ministerios, where there is a Corte Ingles (a large department store found all over Spain). I sat down at a cafe and ordered a beer and a pincho de tortilla (a slice of Spanish tortilla-see recipe on link list), and people watched for most of the evening. I went window shopping and then I took the metro back to the station.

I took the midnight luxury bus to Santander and arrived at 6:00 am. My friends picked me up at the station, we went to their apartment and we slept for about three hours. Then we headed out to the country house. To be continued...