Leaving London, Meeting Madrid

---

6:15 am waking up to Breakfast being rolled into the room, I've got a kink in my neck from the couch, and I only slept for four hours. I make it to my feet grab my clothes that I had set aside(having packed my bag that Night) climb into the shower and wash up. Im ready to go and I look out the balcony window and see that its Cloudy, a wee bit muggy outside. It reminds me that I'am sad to leave London, and she is sad that Im leaving too. So we make it down stairs in the lobby about ten minutes after seven, their is a cab waiting outside bags ready to go. The Cabbie was not to talkative to us, but rather on his cell, because of the barrier between us and the driver.(who wears a microphone to speak to us in the backseat) I couldn't make out much of his conversation, but it seemed like a business call. I thought to myself what a crazy man, he is on a blue tooth, but he is still scrolling around on his phone that is attached to a mount on the dash board of the cab. People in England are crazy drivers regardless if they are talking on the phone. The streets are very narrow and where there are parked cars, the street turns into a single lane on a two way road. So as the cab Jets over to the right lane to get around a car parked in the far left lane he cuts off a Black hatchback mercedes. As we get down the road a ways the cabbie goes to get back in the left lane but traffic stops so his tail end of the cab is still in the right lane. As we are stopped in-between lanes, that Black mercedes tries to squeeze around the cab. Its just to close, and she scrapes a solid four feet of her mercedes across the right rear quarter panel of the cab. So that was a major delay getting to the airport that was already 40 minutes away. We arrive at Heathrow im carrying three bags my 15lb ruck-sack on my back, my 40lb duffle in my right hand, and my mother's 50lb duffle in my left hand. We walked in one huge circle to finally find the sky Priority line, to check in our bags. Im Exhausted so we make it through security and we find the lounge, get some food and a beer to wake me up. We board our plane from London to Amsterdam; a quick 45 minute flight. Then when we arrive in Amsterdam we go though the Passport check station, and we are looking for our gate. We go up an escalator, down an escalator, across a couple moving belt walkways, up some stairs, then down an escalator to our gate. I look around and we are about two gates away from where our plane gated up when we landed! But there was no other way to get into the gate's waiting area than to go all the way through the airport to get back to where you started because that is how the airport is designed! To give Credit to Amsterdam their airport is very eco-friendly and has real trees growing in the floor, each tree has a pocket in the ceiling for the canopy of the tree to grow in! very cool place but you have to walk all the way through! We boarded our flight to Madrid, and I feel asleep immediately(asleep through take off too!) until woke up mid-flight to the smell of food! We where being served lunch and I woke up just in time to get my order placed! Salmon lasagna, it was pretty good, but was served at 200 degrees! Once we landed in madrid, we had no euros so we could not get a luggage carrier so I lugged the bags out. The same three Heavy ass bags out of the airport!(I Secretly liked the exercise) We got a cab, an barley fit all of our bags in the small sedan, and enjoyed the ride into Madrid.(which is very different than the ride into London, it was a lot more subtle less towering buildings, and more rugged city scape) I felt a bit better about driving on the literal "Right" side of the road. When we arrived at the hotel I was pretty impressed by it stature, and well thought out Floor plan. My mom had to take a conference call, so I got out of the room and went down to the pool. A giant circle pool outside 50ft in diameter, and about 6.5ft deep. The Madrid air was hot and the pool water was cool. A nice day even when the sunshine was blocked by the buildings. I Like Madrid and I cant wait to have a look around.

Adios,

Lucas

---