DATE
2019.04.10

START
NYC
JFK Airport, Terminal 1, Gate 9

END
Madrid
Avenida de Oporto, 33, 3a

DISTANCE
~ 3600 miles

TRAVELED BY
Plane • Foot • Metro

HIGHLIGHTS

• Flight

  • Cozy seats (w/ head flaps!)

  • Had the whole row to myself

  • Touch screen w/ movies/shows/games, and USB port

  • Was able to sleep relatively easily

  • Flight crew's uniforms

• Talked to K8 on her way to work

• Beautiful weather in Madrid (mid-50s, partly cloudy)

• Clean and smooth Metro system

  • I mostly took stairs in place of the congested escalators

    • My legs!

• Speaking Spanish!

• Found a cute little cafe (called Epopolo) in the Tribunal neighborhood for an afternoon snack and some WiFi (pronounced "WEE-fee."). The person behind the counter was an older lady, super sweet and patient with me and my bumbling Spanish. There was a gentleman there the whole time who sometimes went behind the bar—I suspect he was her husband. And they had classical music on the whole time. What I got:

  • Cafe con leche (part of why I started drinking cortados stateside, though I expect I'll be trying cortados here soon to compare now that I'm a bit more initiated)

  • A slice of carrot bread (think banana/zucchini bread style)

  • A beer (which came with some complimentary potato chips)

  • She later brought out some kind of cured sliced meat. It was a lot more like pepperoni than anything else.

• WhatsApp FINALLY loaded and I got my first WhatsApp message from K8. So sweet and touching.

• Got some work done while waiting on my friend Taylor to finish work and his physical therapy (he broke his wrist fairly recently)

• Made it to Taylor and Paula’s apartment and had good chats, a few beers, and some roasted veggies (zucchini, bell peppers, asparagus, and mushrooms)

• Talked to K8 on her way home from work! Laughed super hard at her goofiness.
  

CHALLENGES

• Flight delay, was very tired

• Some medium to heavy turbulence fairly early on, made it hard to sleep

• Speaking Spanish!

• Realized that exchanging USD over here is going to be really inefficient, and I have ~$200 in cash on me. I'm torn between exchanging it and just holding onto it and pulling from an ATM.

• Missing K8