DAY 89

This is starting to become a very annoying trend, this waking up at the crack of dawn for the damn train. But because of the distance between start and finish the only trains that I can get is the first train out in the morning. Thankfully, my trip from Barcelona to Madrid only has 2 stops, one in Lleide and the other in Zaragoza. I get off the train in Madrid into this absolutely beautiful train station, NO JOKE! just look at the pictures. What they did was added on a new train station to the original one, and the old station is where all the things like ticket counters, info booth is. Also there are all these little cafes on the edge of the old station, and then in the middle is this jungle thing, it even came complete with turtles and other amphibious creatures. I take a taxi to my hotel, which is about 30 min from the train station in a small town called, Boadilla El Monte. The first thing that I came upon was this freaking large, salmon pink, building, which looked like it used to be a palace or something. Well I later found out from the front desk that it was originally built and used for an equestrian centre back in its hay-day. HAHAHAHAHA, back in its hay-day, WOW, I crack my self up. A horsey place back in its hay-day ...........um.....yea..... Now that I think about it, it's actually not that funny, I've just been sitting at this damn computer for 7hrs and 34 min and 49 sec at this computer in an internet cafe transferring all my days notes from paper to my blog (it's Oct. 2 in Madrid right now) Anyways, I would just die and go to heaven, probably a dozen times, if that's where I rode. It's now some sort of government building. I arrive at my hotel which I just up the road, named El Antigvo Convento, which was built in 1674 as, if you didn't guess already, a convent. I walk into the hotel and feel as if I have just gone back in time and if it weren't for the little things like lights and the front desk having a computer it would have been back then. This hotel, except for some modernifications that they had to do for safety reasons they have left everything how it was. Let me just tell you this place is gor-ge-ous. When you wake down the halls there are these b-e-a-u-tiful tapestries and oil paintings. That's not including all the other things like some old chests in the hallway and some other furniture, plus a lot of the outside doors are original. I finally get to my room more to get a tissue to wipe the drool off my face. I unpack all my things and fall, and I mean literally fall (I tripped over the carpet) onto my bed were I am fast asleep until I hear this tapping at my door. I go and answer it, I find this middle aged woman extending her hand and introducing herself as Jeri Caprio, from Pompano Beach, FL (later finding out that has ridden with all these amazing people, and that she is at the St. George level, and that she currently rides in Wellington). I’m thinking to my self this is such a small freaking world I’m on the other side of the world from a place that I have only lived in for 10months and at a riding program, that even though is not a small company, by all means is not a huge one either, and now I’m meeting someone who lives 45min away from me. While talking to Jeri in my doorway the other two riders, Judy and Laura (who are step-mother and daughter) and the Bill (the husband and father) come walking by on there way to dinner. So we quickly said hi before going down the stairs. A little while later Jeri said that since it was dinner time and that she was starting to get kind of hungry that we should go out. Well since we didn’t know were anything was since we both had arrived today, we started walking in the direction of the most lights, thinking that a lot of light must mean people, which means things like restaurants, which means food for our bellies. When we got to the top of this small hill we saw this pub/restaurant that looked kind of good, so we popped right in. We look in and there is nobody except for the waiter and some guy and the bar. Well we’re too hungry so we sit down and look at the menu. THAT WAS A JOKE :) I mean it’s not like we know any Spanish, even though we both live in Miami. So between our English and my French and limited (and when I say limited, I really mean it) Spanish we sort of got through the menu and ended up just ordering a mixed salad and pesto spaghetti. When we were just finishing our meal there was this big rush of people that came in to eat. We later found out that people in Spain do everything later. This why nobody was at our restaurant during “dinner time” because it wasn’t for them. This is what we found out; breakfast doesn’t start till about 9:30-10:30am, “lunch time” is at 3pm and dinner is not till 10pm, though some of the “tourist” restaurants will open at 9:30pm. By the time we got back to the hotel we both weren’t that tired, but we knew we would have a big day ahead of us so we said our goodnights and went to bed.

the (well all dried up) Spanish Country-Side