Day 1 & 2

Well....we made it to Spain! It was a long first day and a half, but here is the way it went...

We left Columbia, flew to Charlotte, hung out in the airport for a while, flew to Philly. Plane was a little late getting into Philly, so our layover there was quite short. We waited just a few minutes and were able to board our flight for Barcelona.

The flight was great - all in all a pretty smooth ride. The dinner was just so-so, a warm salad, pasta and a decent desert. Had a few drinks to try to help me sleep a little - that didn't really work! I have a hard time sleeping on planes, trains, buses, etc. but probably slept for two hours.

Upon arriving in Barcelona, we immediately exchanged some currency and hopped aboard a bus to the train station.

We took a short train ride to what amounts to Grand Central Station in Barcelona. After a 2 hour layover in the train station, we hopped aboard a really nice bullet train to head to Zaragoza.

This train was AWESOME - very comfortable and spacious. There was a staff that had a beverage and snack service. And man was it fast!!!! There is a display that shows the speed - at one point we were going 303 km/hour - for those of you who don't convert fast that's 188 miles per hour!

So the train ride was about two hours to Zaragoza. Upon arriving, Mariano picked us up, dropped some things at my hotel and then went to his home for some tapas! Mussels and a spicy tuna concoction that was very tasty! And of course beer!

The landscape here is very interesting - much like a desert, but with pretty substantial foothills that dot the landscape. Here are some pics from the window of the train. The red flower is from Mariano's back yard. It was a little ironic to me that in such a barren landscape, such a beautiful flower can emerge.

We went to the conservatory for a while and practiced/rehearsed, then went for dinner - more Tapas that were awesome! We had calamari, a tasty pork dish, some really tasty garlicky fried baby squid, a potato dish, a mushroom dish (which I politely passed on) and some really nice beer! After that, we had some ice cream on the way back to the hotel.

Here's a couple of views from my hotel room.

At this point, it is roughly 9:00 pm local time (3:00 EST) and I still haven't slept for real. Even though I was tired, I forced myself to stay up a few extra hours so that I could get a really good night's sleep. So, I went out and took a walk and explored a little bit of Zaragoza for a while. Then, I skyped with my wife and son, then skyped with mom and dad, and finally headed off to bed. Man did I sleep good!