Spain part 1-April 10th-13th (Not even spain yet...but still good)

Honestly, i just haven't even had the motivation to write about Spain yet. It's like when you know you have a huge project due for a really hard class, and you know about it 2 months in advance, but you wait until the weekend before it is due, and are up all night for 3 nights straight, and you get it done and barely scrape by. Ok it's not that bad, but i just have so much to talk about and mention, it's just going to take me awhile. I've debated breaking it up into parts, and i think i might do that just to help out the reader....if anyone besides me is reading this :) And just fyi, I'm at work right now at 4:31 AM on April 30th, 2008. I'm here at work to take overflow calls from Spain. They are paying me $5 extra/hour. So far i haven't had a call, thus giving me the time to write this. Here goes.

Thursday April 10th, 2008

The only reason i even mention this day is just from the night and the events following this night. I had gone up to Sandy to get some stuff for the trip. A camera battery, suitcase, passport, etc. By the time i got back to Provo, it was pretty late, around 11:00, or something like that. I still had a bunch of laundry to do, thus the possibility of even thinking of going to bed wasn't an option. I put in a load, and then didn't know what to do. Mike and Cami said they were going to go to the hospital to get a shake. (It's a pretty well kept secret...the cafeteria is open til like 2 am, and their shakes are pretty amazing) I didn't have any reason to go, so i joined them. We took some interesting pictures while there. When i got back, i don't remember what they did, but all i know is i didn't go to bed until 2:30 AM just being up packing and doing laundry, etc. The plan was to pick up Mike at UPS and then drive to the airport, and be there at 9, giving us an hour to make our 10:00 flight.

Friday April 11th, 2008
Woke up at 6:45, got ready, and left at 7:15. We got to Mikes work and still had to wait for him until almost 8:30. Since it was Riki and Kevin's wedding this day, Cami came with Mike (who was dropping us off at the airport) so they could just go to the wedding, which was in Sandy. Needless to say, Cami was pretty exhausted, and this angle proves it.

If you look close, and turn it around, you can see that it's actually her check, not her forehead....classic eh?

Since our entire trip was based on us not having to spend a lot of money on the plane tickets, we were flying standby. Mike Madsen's Mom worked for Delta, thus enabling us this option. Mike has been flying standby his entire life, giving him the knowledge and all the ins and outs of flying. A few days before the start of our trip, American Airlines had to cancel like 700 flights for some kind of inspections on a certain aircraft of theirs. Since we were flying Delta, i really didn't think it would affect us at all. Man was i wrong. We got to the airport, and got to our gate with at least a half hour to spare. Right when we got to the monitor showing the status of the flight, and how full it was, Mike knew we weren't going to get on that flight. Our plan was to fly to New York JFK airport, then catch the night flight to Spain. We watched the plane fill up, and leave without us. Of course to Mike it was no big deal, since this kind of thing does tend to happen when you are flying standby. So we went and talked to Delta to see what our options were. Both of us extremely tired and hungry too, it was the start to a really long day. We got tickets for a flight to LA that left a few hours later. We went and got a Cinnabon, an airport must, and just chilled for a while. The LA flight came around, and again we watched it fill up and leave without us. Again, we talked to Delta and then decided to get tickets to Boston. At this point we already knew we wouldn't get on the flight from JFK to Spain since it was already to late. The Boston flight would get us there that night, and we'd have a flight to JFK early in the morning. Well the Boston flight came around, and guess what, it filled up and left again...without us. ONE of us could have gotten on, and had Delta actually stuck to their rules, we both would have gotten on. There was a family of 3 RUNNING to the gate right before they gave us their seats. We were pretty mad, which i guess probably isn't right because those people DID pay for a full priced, reserved seat....but still, we were on vacation! So we didn't get on the flight. Neither one of us thought to bring our cell phone chargers...since we thought once we got to Spain, we'd just turn our phones off and have full battery when we got back. Yeah that was a mistake. And no where in the freaking airport had phone chargers...you'd think they would...honestly. So both of our phones were still pretty full, but Mike's was dying quickly, from talking to his Mom to figure out our options. Mine was ok, but it was dying too from using it for whatever. So our plan was to have Mike's Mom come pick us up, we'd go to his house and sleep (by this time it was like 4 or 5 in the afternoon), then come back for a Midnight flight to JFK. The flight looked awesome, and we were pretty much guaranteed to get on.
We went to his house, and crashed immediately and slept for 5 or 6 hours. But when we got back to the airport, things were just not going our way. The flight was delayed until 4:00 AM. We went back to his house, and slept for 2 more hours, woke up and came back and GOT ON THE FLIGHT!! WOO HOO!! Ok, so here's the craziest thing ever about this whole airport experience. I'm sitting there in my seat, a window actually, with a little girl next to me and her dad next to her. I'm kind of wanting to doze off, but really couldn't just because my body clock was already messed up. I look up, and see the back of a head, and a side profile that I swore I recognized. The girl turns around and i still couldn't catch a full view of her face, but at this point i was 90% sure i knew who it was. I turn around and tell Mike I thought i knew this girl, and he looks over. The girl was finally sitting down, and talking to her friend. Her friend notices that I'm kind of pointing and talking about them, and Hermana Jones from my mission looks over. We both have this look of "QUE!?!? COMO!??!...Are you serious?" And we're both like, "Wow, hey...how's it going?" How RANDOM is that? To see a sister from my mission that i haven't really even heard from or talked to in 2 years. After all the flights we couldn't get on, after the flight we were on was delayed until 4 am, etc. I don't know. I mean for whatever reason, it fell on both of us to be on an airplane at 4 am to New York. She said she was going to NY for her birthday, and when she got there, she met up with some other people. Now, I can't remember if she is married or not. I swear she is, but I didn't see a ring. It could have meant nothing, and been pure coincidence. I mean I always did think she was attractive, but if anything I think it was more of a "Look, remember the mission? You'll have missionary experiences. Take them, and help someone." (will be explained further ahead) I really didn't have a missionary opportunity at this point with my seating arrangement, but Mike did. He kind of talked to the lady he was sitting next to, but not really about the church at all. We both decided later on that we couldn't figure out what made it so much harder than being on a mission. It's sad, but the truth. So we waited an HOUR in the plane to take off. I guess since it was so early in the morning, they only had like 1 runway open, so we had to wait for some planes to come in and land. At 5:00 AM, our vacation was officially started.

Saturday April 12, 2008
Our flight got in at NY JFK around 11:00 AM, New York time. Our flight didn't leave for Spain until 7:30 PM that night, so we had some time to kill. We walked around, checked things out, looked at the flight, and did whatever for awhile. We found a gate area that was basically empty, and made ourselves a neat little space with two benches. We bought some breakfast sandwiches, and dunkin donuts to hold us over until the flight. New York is expensive. I brought my laptop so we would be able to communicate with people once we got to Spain, so we watched The Count of Monte Cristo. Mike hadn't ever seen it, and since there were no people in the area we were at, we didn't have to use headphones, which was nice. Mike talked to Becky for a while, and had a pretty good conversation from what i understand. But this turned out to be a mistake later on, as it drained alot of his phone battery. Time started rolling around for us to make our way to the gate for the flight to Spain. We exchanged our cash, and i won't even say how much because it kind of pains me to think about it...not really anymore since i was planning on spending a lot of money. All i can say, is having dollars and converting them to Euros...you get screwed. I'm glad i live in America. We checked in at the gate, and waited for them to clear our names on the flight. Mike had talked to his Mom, and she had said that basically the flight looked fine. Well, guess what, it wasn't. We again, now for the 4th time, watched the flight fill up and leave without us. Again, one of us could have gotten on, but seeing how we weren't sure at the time how the next flight would look, we decided to go together on the next one. So now it's 8:00, we're in New York, the next flight to Spain at all still wouldn't be until the next day. There was one to Barcelona at like 5, and the Spain flight at 7:30. Mike's phone, now with only 1 bar of battery left, was put to use again so he could talk to his Mom and see what the options were. He turned his off, and we used mine. I still had 2 bars of battery, so we were good for awhile. We figured out that one of his sister's had a friend that lived right there in New York, in Manhatten, and they had agreed to take us in for the night. Since it's New York, and no one has cars there at all, we had to take the Subway to get to their house. I wish i remember the lines we had to take. All I remember is we had to get on a train out of the airport, then catch the subway and make all kinds of connections to get to the guys house. The coolest part of this whole experience, for me at least, was this:

Only in New York can you see a sax player in the subway. I especially like the part at the end when he gets into the girls face until she gives him money.

Only in New York. So we got to the guys' house around 10 or 11, after taking about an hour on the Subway's to get there. I didn't take many pictures or anything on the subway, mainly from fear of being robbed, which probably wouldn't have happened...but still. The guy met us kind of halfway in between the station and his house. His name was John...i think...and his wife was...i can't remember, seeing how we never met her anyway.
So we get to his house, rather his apartment, and he shows us around. Man that place was so freaking small. It was just this tiny apartment with two bedrooms, a hallway, a kitchen, bathroom, and a "living room." We later found out that they pay $1800, which isn't even the full cost of the apartment. The apartment was nothing special, and he said it was pretty nice for the area. I like Utah. So since they only had one bedroom, Mike took the bed and I took the couch. He said his wife would be coming in to get her stuff for work like at 6 in the morning, but I don't remember ever even being stirred awake at all. We were both so dead tired, I don't think even like a firetruck, in my room, with the sirens blazing, horn honking, lights flashing, people screaming, and dogs barking would have woken me up. It was one of the best nights of sleep I have ever had.

Sunday April 13th, 2008
John informed us that his ward started at 9. We really were planning on going, but after the extra long day, days, we had had, there was no way we were getting up. He actually came in at like 8:30 and checked to see if we would be going. Mike wasn't awake yet, and i was still out of it, and i told him not to worry about it. We both really woke up around 11 or so, both fully energized. He got back at about 12:30 and informed us about a singles ward that met at 1. We decided it would be pretty cool to go to church there, even though we really had wanted to go in Spain, but it was still cool. We got ourselves as ready as possible, and went. The ward met in a chuch house, but it really wasn't a church house. I mean it was, but it was just a building in the middle of Manhatten that didn't really even look like a Church. But the coolest part was once you were inside, it really did look exactly like any church that i have ever known. That, to me, is one of the absolute coolest and most amazing parts of about the church. Anywhere and everywhere you go, it is the same. The structure, the teachings, the buildings, the hymnbooks, the beliefs. Everything is the same. There really isn't another church on earth like that. The ward was actually two wards combined. I guess one of the ward buildings was undergo construction, so needless to say the place was pretty packed. We found some seats like on the 3rd to back row, which made us feel weird since we generally try to find seats near the front at our normal ward. We decided not to stay for Sunday School and Priesthood since we really didn't have much time until our flight left. We went back to the apartment, and ate a sandwich that John had stuff for, and just kind of chilled for once. Mike looked at the flights, and we started to realize it wasn't looking to great. There were some open seats, but it wasn't looking for sure good at all. We made a decision to stay another night, which he said he was fine with...but really he wasn't. I guess his wife is a pediatrician, and had worked 2 full days including the day we were there. She would be coming home the next day, and he wanted her to have the full house to do what she wanted. He said it would be find if we slept there that night, but he would need us to leave in the morning. We were fine with that, but then we started making plans for stuff to go and see the next day, and kind of mentioned that we would just leave our suitcases there and come back and get them. He said he would want us out completely....we were like, "umm...ok." We later found out that he is extremely protective of his wife, and just didn't feel comfortable with the idea of us coming back without him being there. Not that he thought we were going to attack his wife or something, but his point was he didn't want her to have to worry about us coming back. We were even thinking just leave our bags at the door and slip in and out and she wouldn't even know we were there. Mike left the room, then 2 minutes later called me in and we decided to just go to the airport and see if we could get on the flight. It would be better staying there the next day than lugging our suitcases all around New York. It was pretty rude that he wouldn't let us keep our bags there, but at the same time he DID put us up for a night...and gave us food...two complete strangers....but it still bothered me for awhile. He even said something to the extent of "I know a lot of places have somewhere to store your bags while you visit the museums or what not." Yeah, not gunna fly dude. oh well.

We went out and decided we didn't have enough time to get to the airport via subway, and flagged down a taxi. The standard rate for a taxi to the airport from anywhere in Manhattan, was $45 plus fare, which was like $5. We didn't really have a choice, so we coughed up the money. In reality, it was a pretty neat experience being in the taxi. I mentioned previously that we both decided we needed to take the missionary opportunities when they arose for us. The guy's name was Abdhoul, or Rabuhl...we really aren't sure, but something close to that. He was African, actually from Africa, not just a black guy in New York. He grew up Muslim, but said he had talked to some Christians and liked the things they talked to him about, and knew some really good people. We then proceeded to give a really basic first discussion. I mean it wasn't in depth at all like i would have given in the mission, but it wasn't just a fly by either. We talked about where the name Mormon comes from, where the church was organized, kind of what we believed, and other things he had questions about. It was easy bringing up the church since we were on our way to Spain, and people asked us how we knew spanish, which brought up the mission, and so forth. He was pretty interested, even if it was just purely interest for information about other religions as he told us. He did tell us though that he would like to read The Book of Mormon sometime, if anything more than to learn more. That's kind of the world views as i see it, alot of people just think it's good to know about every religion and things they believe in. Obviously it is a good thing, but knowing there is a true church on planet earth is the most important thing. Mike had a Book of Mormon he had been reading, and i guess it was pretty hard for him, that he decided to give to him if he promised to read it. He wanted us to put our names in it so he could remember us. Mike had a hard time giving it up i guess because it's the one he had been reading since he got home from his mission. But he decided it was more important for him to have it. Who knows, maybe he didn't even read it and gave it away and someone else will read it. You never know and i think that's kind of the point we started to discover on the trip, that the most important thing is to implant the seed. This is the man we taught and gave the Book of Mormon.

Kind of a crappy picture. Not sure why. But this is the guy, he was pretty cool.

We got to the airport, checked in, went through security, and got to our gate. There was already a bunch of people there, which of course wasn't unexpected. We told them we were there, and they got our names on the list. Well the people started loading the plane, and it came down basically to us being there. They were saying there was only 1 seat in coach available and 1 seat in Business class. We were bummed that we both couldn't get business class, but that's the luck of the draw. We get on, and lo and behold there were like 5 Business class seats open. We both got business, which was a blessing from giving talking to Abdul....at least that's what i think :) Holy crap, Business Class Elite is AMAZING. They wait on you hand and foot. You have your own tv to watch whatever the heck you want, they give you these amazing noise canceling headphones, they give you amazing dinner, the seats recline basically all the way back to laying down, the blankets and pillows are way nice, the people treat you like a king, and it's just awesome. I ate a pasta dish, with a Lobster Bisque soup...both of which were pretty dang amazing. Then the Ice Cream Sundae, was also amazing. I think i drank more soda on the flight there than i had in the past 2 months at all. There's just something about drinking a Coke on the airplane that makes it taste SO amazing. I also got addicted to Cranberry juice w/ Sprite, one of my favorite drinks ever. I watched The Golden Compass and Dan in Real Life. Everyone said The Golden Compass was all about the anti christ, and anti religion, but i don't know why people think that. It was just a good movie, period. Dan in Real Life is pretty amazing too. Steve Carrell is pretty dang awesome, of course i already knew that from watching the office. But it's true, he's such a good actor. On the plane i sat next to a guy named Victor. He was really a nice guy, and really helpful. He showed me on a map where we were going and where Malaga (where our hotel was) was, and how to get there. He told me what buses/metros to take to get to the train station, etc. I got his phone # and email in case i had any questions or anything, and he gladly gave them to me. I haven't emailed him yet, but i am planning on it. I think it could be to my advantage in the future to have a friend in Spain, for whatever reason i may need it one day you know? So that was our plane ride to Spain. It was about a 7 hour flight, but didn't feel like it since we were in such nice seats and i watched movies the whole time.

Well that's going to be it for part 1. I know this probably isn't 100% complete since it's only part 1, and i haven't added any pictures in yet. I am at work right now, so i don't have any way to add them. But i will, don't worry.