After 48 hours, we´ve arrived

2 a.m. from Tom´s aunt´s apartment

Where to begin? I guess by saying that this will be a short post because we only arrived at Tom´s mom´s sister´s house an hour and a half ago and I´m struggling with a Spanish keyboard. But we made it. Our first flight out of Vancouver stopped in Calgary for an hour and a half and we weren´t allowed off the plane. Yuck. The remainder of the flight was about 8 hours and I slept for about 2 of them, and Tom for about the same. We landed in Gatwick airport in the evening and I almost got refused entry. Tom and his parents were fine because they have Polish passports, but I had my Cdn one and no tickets for my next flight or return tickets or money or anything on me. The woman was really skeptical because I had no proof I was going to be leaving England (pfffft why would I want to stay??). It was a valid point, but I told her that we had heard from a travel agent that it was cheaper to buy tickets once in England. She let me through with a glare and a warning.

Then we found out that we couldn´t get a flight out to Spain until the next day (and it was expensive), so we booked a hotel for the night--Tom took some crazy pics of the wall paper--we walked into our room and it was a shock of red and blue loud patterned floor with crazy different patterns of I don´t know what on the walls. And their were grease stains on the comforter. I fell asleep almost right away (too exhausted to be jet lagged). Woke up once when Tom brought me some Hindu pizza ((it had corn in it!!) and slept until 6 a.m. when we got a wake-up call.

We were going to take the shuttle at 7:15 to the airport and leave our baggage in a holding area and then tour around London a bit before our plane left today at 4:30 p.m. but the shuttles were booked up so we ended up spending about 15 pounds on a taxi. Ouch. Then it was a further 25 pounds to leave our baggage, and 40 more to get all-day pass tickets to the London transit system. We took 2 trains, 2 subways and three buses and saw St. Paul´s Cathedral, Buckingham palace (ate lunch there, too... if cold pizza whilst standing in front of the gaudy gilted gates counts) Big Ben the Tower of London and LOTS OF COPS. Yes, I saw cops with machine guns in the airport. That was a bit unnerving.

Our flight to Madrid was then delayed (and lucky thing because we may have not made it if it had been on time due to security line ups and a late lunch). The flight was delayed again once we were on board and we didn´t reach Madrid till 8Ñ30... then almost all the cars at all the rental agencies were rented out, but we got a deisel minivan. We drove to the town we are in now (I can´t remember what it´s called) and drove around and around and around because we didn´t have a map and the people we are staying with don´t have a phone and it had been 16 years since Tom and his parents had lived here. Plus Tom´s dad wasn´t used to driving that car, so he stalled it 4 times getting out of the rental agency, once in a roundabout, twice going over speedbumps and a handful of other times in intersections and when trying to turn around. We asked two pedestrians and a taxi driver and then finally found where we were going because Tom´s mom´s 2 sisters were walking down the street.

I just wanted to crash when we got in, but food was ready. first a bowl of soup, then potatoes, pork and salad and deviled eggs and pickles and bread and cold meat... and shooters of course. I think it was whiskey but I can´t understand anything because I´m the only one that really speaks English. I thanked Tom´s aunt for dinner in Polish, and she responded in Spanish. :) And I understood! (She said de nada.)

Tom´s aunt has been telling stories of their trip from Poland to here. She came with her mom and dad and her mom doesn´t speak any English and her dad is deaf. (Those are tom´s grandparents). Apparently, Tom´s grampa got on the bus and held onto an overhead strap, planning to stand for the short trip, but his gradma walked to the back of the bus, wanting to sit down. She called to him in Polish, hey, old man but he didn´t hear her. So she did what she always does when she wants to get his attention and he doesn´t hear her: she yelled BOO!!

Of course, everyone on the bus jumped and looked around, and Tom´s grampa heard too... he looked around, smiled in understanding and joined her at the back of the bus. Tom´s aunt was pretty embarrassed!

I think the plan for tomorrow is to tour Madrid with Tom´s cousin Pshemick (Not the way to spell it but it´s pronounced like that... probably has a bunch of czy´s in it).

And I think I´m going to try to buy a digital camera because Tom´s parents camcorder´s batteries died half way through today. I´m sure theý´ll want to use their regular camera when that one goes. I´ll try to upload our pictures tomorrow.

So now I´ve showered and have a full tummy and am going to head off to bed. Tom and I are sleeping on a pull out couch tonight and no one knows where we will be sleeping tomorrow night.

August 12th: First day in Madrid

Tom and me in Atocha, a huge train station near, or in, Madrid. This is taken from the floor above where all the palms are growing. It´s an amazing sight.

Tom, Gosha (Tom´s cousin) and Krista.
Tom and his cousin Pszchemek (wild guess at the spelling).... they hadn´t seen each other in at least 12 years.


Madrid´s ever-so-humble Department of Agriculture.

Madrid´s tiny post office.

A street corner in Madrid.

Krista and Tom in front of an impressive domed building--unfortunately the statue of the large bird on the top is not totally visible.

A shady alley full of shops and tourists that we walked down.

Krista and Tom standing below a statue of the symbol of Madrid: a bear eating a tree apples off a tree.
Tom and Krista in front of a statue in front of the Museo del Prado. This museum supposedly has a more complete or thorough collection than the Louvre and is only rivaled by one of the museums in London.

August 12: First day in Madrid part 2

So today we were off tourisming from noon till 10 p.m. These pics will give the gist of what we did; it is now after three a.m. and tomorrow morning we are leaving for the town that the wedding is going to be in on Sunday. The groom-to-be´s family owns a motel there so we will have free acccomodation apparently. I don´t know when I´ll next have access to the internet, right now Tom and I are in Pszychemek´s room and it has a computer in it which I´m allowed to use. But for the next few days we will be elsewhere and tomorrow we are also planning on going to Portugal. So I will post again when I can.

-Krista


Krista and Magda (Tom´s cousin´s cousin´s daughter) by the palms in the train station.... we are standing in front of a pool that had a lot of turtles in it. Madga took a shine to me because I am Canadian and we traded English and Polish words all the way to Madrid and sporadically throughout the day. When her dad was off with his girlfriend, she´d hold my hand. It was really cute.

Two more pics in front of the little post office.

Tom being very bad and having a cigarette during lunch. They had pickled seafood, including purple stuff with tentacles, and I had meatballs.
A statue of Don Quixote and his sidekick (whose name means ¨the gut¨)


Tom with Don Quixote´s sidekick.

Krista with Don Quixote´s sidekick.
One more beer, or so I thought, before heading back to the apartment.
Beer and salted peanuts, and a group shot: From left to right Anya, Robert, Magda, Pzychemek, Marik, Gosha, Damien (and the back of my head at the front).

Me and Tom enjoying (and gagging down) a beer.