Hola,

In order to keep this all fairly easy to read, I´m going to split it up into a couple of smaller posts. This one will cover the trip over, the next our stay in Madrid, then I´ll deal with all of the insanity which is the festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, in several parts.

We left Canada on a Wednesday, and we flew from Calgary to London with an airline called Zoom. Cheap, but there´s a reason. The legroom was, shall we say, insufficient for an eight hour flight, and by the time it was all over, I was tired, sore and badly in need of a good night´s sleep. Because of the time and direction of travel, the sun never actually went down, and so from 7 in the evening in Calgary, when we left, til 11 in the morning in London, we didn´t actually experience night.

We were only in London a few hours, in an airport called Gatwick. It was surprising actually. I had, for some reason, expected European airports to be shiny and new, well organized and generally pleasant. Gatwick was anything but, though I must admit, passport control was very, very efficient. We got throught a line of at least a hundred people in a matter of minutes, and though we were a little worried about making our flight to Madrid, we had plenty of time.

The flight to Madrid was uneventful. I finally managed to get some sleep, this time with ample legroom, but a non-reclining seat. Sometimes, when you´re tired enough, it doesn´t really matter.

I´m really not looking forward to the trip home, but fortunately that´s a good five months away.

Current Location: Barcelona, Spain