Editors note: Here are Days Three and Four of the Mandi World Tour. I’ll try to post a couple of pictures from her camera that relate to each day’s activities or memories.
Day Three: Guided Sightseeing Madrid
We woke up to our wake up call at 6:00 a.m., as we would every morning. Our breakfast was this nasty cereal with room temperature milk. But this milk was the worst milk I had ever had. It was extremely creamy and it tasted like yogurt. Eew. I ended up waiting until we got to Madrid to have breakfast. We drove around Madrid, seeing the same sights as we had seen yesterday, but it was still really cool. Then we went to the royal palace. It was a huge building, beautiful, and the patio was larger than the actual palace, although it might have been part of the palace. . .they just called it “the patio”.
There were paintings in every room, gorgeous tapestries, beautiful furniture and decor. I was a little too groggy to really enjoy it though. . . I was jet lagged, hungry, my feet hurt, and there were no bathrooms in the palace. By the time we got to the queens smoking room I was miserable. But the tour was soon over and we were on our way.
After a stop at the souvenir shop and a visit to the restroom we hopped back on the bus and visited a statue made in honor for a famous writer who was from Spain. He wrote some donkey book that I hope I never have to hear about again, seeing how we had to sit on the ground (where pigeons kept landing on us) and had to hear about it for more than a half hour. After this, we drove around some more, had dinner, and promptly went to bed as soon as we got back to the hotel.
Day Four: Transfer to Barcelona via Zaragoza
I woke up that morning and began packing my bags. Why? Because we were leaving. After downing that horrible breakfast (it was the same thing again) we left. The bus ride over to Zaragoza was very fun. We got to talk, joke around, and just have a good time. We stopped in Zaragoza for some food and we were able to see the chapel there. It was such a cute little town and I really enjoyed it. 🙂
Then we were on our way again. I was one of the few people awake on this ride, and I’m glad I was. It was so amazing to see all of the beautiful scenery. When we were passing through the wilder, less populated parts of Spain, I noticed how it didn’t look much different from Utah. There were a few flowers that I had never seen before, but other than that there was nothing different. It was a long ride, and when we finally reached Barcelona we were all quite exhausted.
Most of the kids just wanted to stay at the hotel and rest, but the teachers were giving us the option of seeing the water and light show that evening and I wanted to go. We took the subway over, and you would be surprised at how empty and warm it was. There were very few people, our small group made up the largest party, but it felt like there should be hundreds of people down there it was so hot and stuffy. We arrived just in time. Almost the second I sat down the show began. It was amazing. They had this huge fountain with water shooting everywhere in time to music. Lights were projected from the fountain, changing the color of the water depending on how fast or slow they were moving or what the music was like. It was an amazing experience and I’m so glad I went.
That's how we roll 