¡Buenos días Madrid!

After roughly 10 hours or travel, we have finally made it to Madrid!  Everything went smoothly, too.  The only change in our travels was that the flight from Dallas to Madrid was delayed about an hour because they had to clean the plane.

We got about 5 hours of sleep on the plane, which really helped out because we arrived at 11:30 am Madrid time.  Once we arrived, it was very easy to navigate the Madrid airport to get to baggage claim. The airport is very industrial-modern looking with a few murals from local artists.  Also, it was very empty!  We were able to find our compañera very easily because she was holding up an IES sign.  From there, she flagged down a taxi and took us to our apartment.  The cab ride was about 30 minutes and cost 45€--hopefully one of the few cab rides we will have to take.  

As for the apartment, it surpassed my expectations!  It is very nice.  There are 4 people total living here--our compañera, Ana, Lindsay, Bria, and myself.  We all get our own room and there are 3 bathrooms, so I am sharing with Lindsay.  The rooms have a twin-sized bed, a closet, a bookshelf, a desk and chair, a couple lights and a few decorative items.  There is a full sized kitchen equipped with everything you could imagine, 2 refrigerators, a dishwasher and a pantry (with spices/basic items).  There is a dining table as well.  To my surprise, there is a washer and a dryer!  I was expecting to hang dry all of my clothes, which I still might do anyways.  The living room had 2 couches, a TV and a coffee table and to top it all off, we have a sunroom for studying/hanging clothes, or whatever else.  The view of the sunroom is amazing.  

Here are some photos from yesterday/today:

In the Dallas Airport waiting at our gate

My bedroom

Bookshelf and closet

View from my room

View from my room

Shower

Sink

Kitchen

More kitchen

Sunroom/study

View from sunroom

Zoom of the view--not sure what this is yet.

Our first meal + legally purchased beer

Funny story about finding our first meal.  We originally walked into a restaurant and everyone was either standing and drinking or sitting and there weren't any tables available and we were just wondering around and attempted to communicate with the wait staff but it just was not working... so we just left and found a different place.  I ordered a dish that I had no clue about what it was and it ended up being a 3 course deal for 9,5€... but it was way too much to eat, and not that great!  On the other hand, Bria and Lindsay got delicious egg sandwiches and we all had an Amstel.  Not bad for our first dining experience in Madrid.  However, we will definitely ask our compañera for some suggestions before we go out next time.

Tonight we are taking a walk down La calle princessa with the students that are living in our complex and our compañeros to scope out the supermercados, banks, and other important places.

One last thing--the weather is far different than what we thought it would be!  It is cold!  All of the locals are wearing boots, pants, coats, scarves... So we may need to buy a jacket and some boots very soon!  The heat is supposed to hit more next month, so I'm looking forward to that.