So I´m in Madrid...

...wow!!

The chair at this computer is way too low and rather annoying - oh well.

Sooo it´s been a long couple of days!!!
It was both strange and sad leaving all my friends and family at the airport on Friday night. That feels like so long ago though - so much has happened since then!!! I probably won´t even remember everything as I write this but oh well here goes:

My first thought as I walked onto the plane at Auckland airport was ¨Now I see why they call it cattle class!!!¨ lol. Watched a couple movies - decided that Michael Cera is cool, slept a very little bit but mostly was too awake - damn.
Flight was long long long boring boring boring but I always knew that was going to be the way.

I hadn´t been given boarding passes for my connecting flights at Beijing, which proved somewhat difficult and led to some trauma and feeling rather stupid!ç
Short story is I couldn´t go directly through the transfers queue without a boarding pass and I got sent in various different directions by different people with no idea what exactly I was supposed to be doing and how I was going to get my boarding passes for the next 2 flights. Finally a staff member found me by the train station place [they have a train shuttle between terminals/parts of the terminal - that place is huge!!] lost and crying and feeling hopeless and stupid. She spoke not much English but took me all over the airport, through the check-in queues and everything to get my passes and took me to the right gate. Was very grateful and after that China gave me no more trouble.

Got on the Lufthansa plane and after noticing, as I had already heard, that the seats looked even more cramped and less comfortable than on Air New Zealand, I was pleased to discover that I had an aisle seat in the front row, so plenty of leg room =) and as it turned out the two seats next to me were unoccupied, so I had space to spread out my stuff etc - saweeet. Not so impressed that there was no entertainment-on-demand so the iPod got plenty of use.
Transfer at Frankfurt was straightforward and only a short flight to Madrid. I probably got about 3-4 hours sleep in the entire 36ish hours of traveilling - tired!

When I landed in Madrid however, I waited at the baggage claim forever but my bag never showed up. Cue more tears, more stress, etc etc etc, but the guy at the lost luggage desk was helpful and spoke good english and was pretty damn cute!!!
The bag still hasn´t turned up - NOT IMPRESSED!
The airline said they will reimburse me for up to 50€ to buy stuff I need today that I should have had in my bag. I get another 50€ for tomorrow, since they still don´t know where it is - well they didn´t this afternoon. So i´ve got some pjs to sleep in and new pair of underwear and socks. tomorrow first thing gonna get another change of clothes and hopefully I´ll see my bag sometime soon.

The hostel, though a bit out in the suburbs is easy to get to and takes about half an hour or maybe less, walking included, from the middle of the city - it´s an easy trip really. It´s big and clean and the staff are friendly and helpful enough. Was a bit slow getting out this morning and was not feeling so great because of the bag mess, but once I met up with Sol everything felt better. Nice to have someone to talk to and hang out with =)Sol is pretty much awesome! We discovered after a couple of hours that we love almost exactly the same bands =) so yay hehe and theres plenty more we seem to have in common. We spent the afternoon/evening wandering around central Madrid - sometimes with purpose and sometimes not haha. I love the city, and it´s so different to Auckland or anywhere I´ve ever been. It´s crazy when I stop to think and realise - wow, I´m actually in Spain!!!
I love all the old buildings and streets and the Plaza Mayor is just incredible! We´ve done some shopping - since i needed stuff and Sol needed a new pair of shoes. We went down and walked along the Paseo del Prado - which is like the high culture end of Madrid. Enormous lines to get into the Museo del Prado - possibly because Sundays are free entry and its holiday season, plus it´s a hot tourist destination. We´re planning to go back tomorrow morning with Larissa. Also on the agenda for tomorrow is a visit to the Palacio Real [Royal palace]

There is no shortage of hot guys around here!!! It´s awesome!!!
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

anyway, I must be off for now, as its getting close to midnight and a) the computer room is going to close b) i´m going to run out of credit and c) i want maybe shower and definately bed!
hoping for an early start tomorrow but will see what time i wake up.

Cellphone is off for now, will turn it on maybe at some point tomorrow but not sure how much life its battery will have - it´s getting low!

thats it for now
love to all

xoxoxo