This post will be a short one because it only covers 5 days. But an important 5 days since they’re my last 5 in the continent of Europe! I took this first photo to set the mood:
Here I am in the airport in Dublin (I know Ireland happened a couple of posts ago, but I thought the photo fit better here!) discussing all the things I want for Christmas with the man in the red suit.
Both David and I are Jewish but we each have a parent that celebrated Christmas or “La Navidad” (in Spanish) with us growing up, so Santa and I go way back. Wondering what’s on my Christmas list? I’m telling him I want to see 10 more countries in the next 6 months, meet up with 15 old friends, and make 20 new ones! He said those are things he can’t put under the tree for me, but I said, “Papa Noel, (his name in Spanish) that’s even better, since I do NOT have room for anything else in my backpack.”
This time around in Spain we stayed in a neighborhood called, “Lavapies”—which literally translated means “foot washer.” Many street and neighborhood names in Spain have Christian origins and Lavapies refers to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
Lavapies and its surrounding neighborhoods felt deserted on Christmas Eve. Several of David’s friends from his rock climbing course with the Mountain Training School in Northern Spain were in Madrid for the night and so we met up with them for Christmas Eve dinner. All restaurants and stores were closed except if they had non-Christian owners so we had the option of Chinese or Indian food. Can you tell from the photo which one we went for?
Maharaja Xmas Eve din din with the rock climbers: (from left to right) Josh, Nate, Ray and Mitch
Nate and David in the Puerta del Sol
On Christmas day there were plenty of people out and about in Madrid. We saw tons of families enjoying their Friday off, especially during our run through Parque Retiro.
A quick stop for a photo op in front of the Monument to Alfonso XII during our run through Retiro.
We had Christmas Dinner at a beautiful restaurant in Lavapies with my friend Sophie (remember her from Barcelona?)
On December 27th we took the metro to the Barajas airport in Madrid.
Plaza del Sol and the much-loved “Tio Pepe” neon sign (it’s a Madrid landmark)
In the airport we ordered several small sandwiches and tapas from the chain restaurant “100 montaditos.” We had a serious pile of change which we hadn’t counted, but when we handed it over to the cashier it turned out we’d ordered perfectly– we spent it with .10 euro-cents to spare!
Our flight from Madrid to South Africa was supposed to have a 2.5 hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland, but our flight was delayed two hours in Madrid. This meant when we landed in Zurich we had very little time to go through customs and then make it to our flight so there was a personal shuttle waiting for us as soon as we got off the plane. The man in the yellow jacket drove us to our own little passport control booth and then straight to our next gate, just in the nick of time!
Below is our plane before and after it’s 13 hour journey from Switzerland to South Africa. That’s enough time to eat dinner, watch two movies, get 4 or 5 hours of sleep, eat breakfast, and watch one last movie before landing !
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