The Joys of Travel

December 29th

I was able to get a full 8 hours of sleep. Waking up around 10:00am I took a shower and had a "hunter-gather" breakfast of fruit, walnuts, and yogurt.

Ettore woke up around 10:50 and quickly pounded up two cups of coffee.  We loaded up the car and headed toward the train station.  We had to pay extra for 1st class tickets as all of the coach tickets had been sold out.  The train arrived and we said goodbye and thank you to Ettore for an incredibly hospitable stay as the conductor blew the whistle and we climbed aboard.

Our train ride turned out to be the best part of the day as we had a series of delays and disappointments on our ride back home to Granada.

From the train station in Milan, we took an hour bus ride to Malpensa airport.  Although we arrived early at the airport, we were unable to carry on our bags.  We had to check them in somewhat defeating the purpose of traveling with only backpacks in the first place.  We boarded the plane only to sit on the tarmac for an hour.  I did read up on the new conflict between Israel and Hamas by reading "El País" Spain newspaper.  Interesting to get the European and Spanish perspective on the conflict.

Arriving in Madrid around 8:00pm we had to wait another 45 minutes for our baggage.  By the time we took the hour metro ride to the bus station it was almost 10:00pm.  With our open return tickets, we could only get the 1:30am bus back to Granada as the 11:30pm was full.  We decided to try and get on that bus by talking to the driver, but in the mean time decided to try the train station.  Two metro lines later, we were at the train station only to find that all of the trains to Granada were over.  Back at the bus station we sat in the cafe until 11:15 where we went down to talk to the bus driver.  Fortunately, we were able to get on the bus although we weren't home free until we passed the half way point as they were stops where people could have gotten on and we would have had to have waited for the 1:30am bus.  We got back into Granada around 5:00am and I was back home in my room around 6:00am.  I skyped my parents to let them know I was OK and then fell immediately asleep.