The rain in Spain

Hmmmmm. The airport in Madrid doesn’t make announcements about gates either. I wonder if this is a new trend. I’ll see when I get to Frankfurt. But back to yesterday. We left Barcelona at 8. The Australian couple were flying back to Barcelona so there were only 6 of us in the bus, including the driver and the guide. And the guide slept most of the way! I sat up next to the driver and he explained things to me and pointed out attractions, although along this stretch there wasn’t much to see. This area reminded me again a lot of Arizona. We climbed to about 3500 feet and there was snow! Spain had been hit by one of the worst snowstorms in years and many of the cities had had just visited were covered. I beat the weather. The highways were were all clear so we had good driving and not much traffic because it was a Sunday morning. We had a bathroom break and then we stopped for an hour at Zaragoza to see the public square and the cathedral. Three Kings/Christmas activities were still going on. I think the kids go back to school here today. The cathedral was very nice. Bombastic, but it had columns of white that made it look less heavy-handed than many cathedrals. Interesting here was that two bombs are hanging on the wall. They were dropped on the cathedral during the Spanish Civil War in the 30s but never exploded. What a reminder of past history! It was cold, nasty and rainy. I keep my hat and gloves on the whole time. After we left there, we made on stop at a rest stop that I would NOT have chosen, if I had my druthers. So I didn’t bother to eat anything there. One thing to note about the ride back was that we crossed the Greenwich Meridian between Barcelona and Zaragoza. This is the imaginary line on which we base our time zones. That was sort of cool. In any case, we got into Madrid at about 6 and I was in the hotel about 7. I grabbed a quick sandwich and coffee at the bar, printed out my boarding pass and tried to get as much sleep as possible until getting up at 4 to be at the airport at 5. It was a quick taxi ride and a quick check in. I have a 4-hour layover in Frankfurt this time and have to check in again there with Aeroflot, the Russian airline, because I couldn’t check all the way through to Kazan from Madrid. All in all, it was a great trip and met some really wonderful people. It was fun traveling with them. Im really glad I did this trip. I lived in Germany all those years and never got there. And it was a section of the world i really wanted to see. I’m also glad I have tomorrow off. I will need to rest up befor I get to school. My next report will be from the deep snows of Kazan!