bienvenidos de españa

hola de españa! yes, after over twelve hours of travel, I am finally in Spain. And really, it feels great to be here. Today's been, perhaps, the longest day of my life. I left Alabama at 4:35pm and didn't make it to Madrid until 4pm (roughly 10am-ish 'Bama time). The flight from Memphis to Amsterdam was great. I love Holland! I want to go explore- the place is so green it's unreal! I love the windmills and the tulips. Ah, it will forever be my first taste of Europe, and pretty much from that point forward (less than 12 hours ago), I've been hooked! Sidenote- my favorite thing about the Amsterdam airport: "paging passenger so and so headed to place x, you are delaying this flight. If you do not arrive shortly, we will have to deboard your luggage." This phrase was sometimes followed with, "passenger so and so, we have deboarded your luggage". The crew of my flight to Madrid gave all of the instructions/information in Dutch. To me, Dutch sounds like English gibberish. You think you heard English only to listen closely and realize that you're not. Alas, I finally made it to Madrid. This afternoon, after I checked into the Best Western in old Madrid, I had the opportunity to go explore on my own. The puerta del sol is the center of town in Madrid, and really, it's gorgeous. Everywhere you look you see these old 15th/16th century style buildings housing department stores, hostels, hotels, etc. For dinner, I walked over to plaza mayor which has been around for centuries. The Spanish, like most other Europeans, like to sit on the terraces of local restaurants for hours. So for once in my life, I gave sitting still a good try. I sat on the terrace of a restaurant for about an hour while I ate my dinner (Roman pizza) and sipped my Coke. I loved the opportunity to sit and watch the people and listen to what seemed to be a hundred different conversations in a hundred different lanugages. I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to making it to Bilbao tomorrow. I've heard Bilbao is gorgeous beyond belief. The Lord continues to bless this opportunity. I'm excited to see what He's going to show me this semester. Adios de españa!