The first day in Spain 9-12-11

Our first day in Spain went something like this; Our flight from New York left two hours late, but somehow we still managed to land at the same time we were originally supposed to in Madrid. Janessa (my in-between step from learning to call her Vanessa from Jesse) slept the whole way from New York to Madrid except for about the last half hour or so, but luckily, we all had personal TVs with movies, shows, and music. Listening to the music on the plane, I discovered that I really like a new song by Yanni called Truth of Touch, and after two episodes of Big Bang Theory, one episode of Mike and Molly, one hilarious episode of #$%^ My dad says, and Pirates of the Caribbean 4, I got a few hours of sleep myself.
While in route from Houston to New York, Janessa and I sat next to a student who was also studying in Spain but lives in Mexico. His name was Jorge. Jorge was very fun to talk to (or at least try to talk to), because he was very knowledgeable about the language, and had a sweet accent. He was very helpful in teaching us the correct ways to say some words, and teaching us some new ones as well.

After arriving at the airport, going through customs, and grabbing our bags, we went to the information booth to ask what the best way to find our hostel would be. We forgot to write down the address, so she told us she couldn't help us until we found out what our address was, and told us to go to where there was internet and find it, but of course she had a look on her face that seemed to say "stupid tourists". So we walked, and walked, and walked until we found another information desk that was closer to the internet spot and asked where to find it. She told us to just keep on going. Wonderful. So we walked some more and some more until we finally came to the internet place where we were able to pay 1 euro for 10 minutes of internet time on a computer that must have been from the 90s. With just enough time to spare, we found out the address, and some other information we needed. The night before we left, one of my high school math teachers, Miss Mumper, who has been to Spain several times, told me to go the information desk and grab a free map of Madrid. I forgot all about getting a map until we were in the middle of surfing that 90s beauty, so after we got our hostel information, we walked back to the closest information booth to ask for a map. They told us that only the information booth furthest away had the maps (Murphy's law at work). We walked all the way back to the original tourist information booth, which seemed like a mile away, and asked for a map. The gentleman there gave us one, and when we asked for one more, so that each of us could have one, he gave us that same "you stupid tourists" look that the woman gave us before. He is the one who works in the tourist booth, who's fault is that?

We also asked where the metro was, and it turned out it was in the same direction we just came, just about twice as far as we had to walk for the internet. We reached the metro station just before my legs would have fallen off. Our metro ride was pretty smooth except for when my suitcase wheels got stuck between the edge of the platform and the metro itself when I tried to pull it up, but luckily there was a very nice gentleman there to help me out of that potentially dangerous situation. Other challenges of the metro ride included having to navigate three different train switches, as well as a few flights of stairs. That's right, we hauled our 40 and 50 pound bags up about 30 steps at a time with nearly the same amount of weight in our backpacking backpacks. Up until today, I thought backpacking with Pastor Ken was the most strenuous thing I have ever done physically. Turns out Mather Pass and the John Muir Trail have nothing on 30 steps of sheer heaven. When we finally got out of the Metro, it was luckily only about a five minute walk to the hostel. I was sweating when we got to the hostel, and just when I thought I was done lugging bags up stairs, my room was on the second floor, so my sweat doubled in about 30 seconds of more sheer heaven.

Janessa and I planned to shower, change, and go for a walk around town. It turned out that I showered, changed, took a detour to meeting Janessa by becoming better aquanted with my bed, and two hours later, when I went to go find Janessa, she was asleep as well. Janessa is on the girls floor; I am on the boys floor, and of course we can't go to each others' floors. It hit me then that we had no phones and no way to contact each other directly except for our computers, so I sent her a facebook message, and luckily, within five minutes, she replied.
We eventually did go out for a very nice walk around town, but it wasn't all roses. While we were walking, an older man walked very close behind us. When we stopped to look at something, he stopped. Janessa had a fairly large handbag, and I had my camera with me. I was watching him the whole time, so eventually, Janessa and I stepped to the side, turned around, and looked directly at the man. He stopped, looked back at us, looked away, and kept walking along casually. We ended up buying dinner at a supermarket, and since we were both extremely tired, we at a quick meal of bread with cheese, and apples. We both agreed to sleep-in quite a bit the next day.