Madrid, Day One

We left Salt Lake City in the mid morning on a Sunday afternoon and flew non-stop to Amsterdam, arriving on a Monday morning.  Seven movies and 5 wide awake Howden's later, we arrived in Amsterdam to race through passport inspection (assisted by one very handsome, very tall and very blond Netherlander).  Once we got through security we raced to our gate to catch our next flight.  The boys were so psyched for the trip on the first flight, that no one slept.  But, the second we got on the flight to Madrid, we were all out cold for the entire three hours.  After the plane landed and taxied, we were taken by shuttle to the main airport.  The plane was so full and Quinn was so asleep that we didnt make the first shuttle - and had to wait almost half an hour on the steps that were wheeled up to the plane on the tarmac for the next shuttle.




Upon arriving in Madrid and getting our luggage we waited - some more patiently than others - for a taxi big enough to carry the 5 of us and all our bags to our apartment in the heart of the city.  Once we got to our home for a few days we were only able to drop our luggage because the cleaning lady wasn't finished.  Because we were all starving we left the apartment and found a small bakery for croissants, some potato chips and a few coke zeros.

All was well except that Quinn's chocolate croissant must have had some hazelnut paste in it because after one bite he was finished and a few hours later was having a hard time breathing and was covered in a rash.  So our first adventure in Spain was to find a pharmacy, get some benadryl, and drug the six year old.  After Quinn was sufficiently drugged the next item on our agenda was to find dinner get a few grocery items and then head back to our apartment to go to bed because we were exhausted.



We took a nice walking tour of the city center and some main plaza's and found a "food court" to get dinner.  We opted for hamburgers (pizza and burgers were all the rage in Madrid) and it was one of the more interesting burgers I've eaten in my life.  Everything was mixed into the meat, which gave it a pretty strange texture and flavor, but the fries were good and we were starving.  We also learned pretty quickly that coke zero is the officially beverage of Spain and we drank it.  A lot of it.

After finding our first of many gelato shops while in Madrid we headed back home to go to bed.  We were exhausted and had no trouble getting anyone to sleep on the first night.