Viva Espana!

Greetings from Madrid!

First of all, I would like to apologize for the inconsistencies of getting the blog updated. A good wifi connection is few and far between.

We last wrote from the beautiful southern France. Since then, our journey has taken us to Barcelona and now Madrid - our final destination. We left Provence by bus. We made two stops en route to Barcelona. Our first stop was in Carcassonne, France. This is a medieval village located just before the France and Spain border. We were able to have a scenic lunch and do some shopping/site-seeing. Once we crossed the border into Spain, we stopped at a Salvador Dali museum. We were all very impressed by his surrealist work. Your girls have some great pictures to share from this museum!

After a day on the bus, we made it to Barcelona! We had an easy first night - dinner at the hotel and early(ish) to bed. Wednesday morning, we had a city-wide tour of Barcelona. We all fell in love with the lively atmosphere. We saw Gaudi's work from the Park Guell and the Sagrada Familia church. We saw the site of the 1992 Olympic Games, and we even saw the port of Barcelona.

That afternoon, the girls were given free time to shop and site see. Mrs. Melandri and I happened to notice a crowd outside the Mandarin Hotel. This crowd was behind barriers and many of the people had cameras like they were journalists. We found out that movie stars were in town and would be walking through at 5:45. Needless to say we summoned our girls and told them of this awesome news. I'm sure many of you have heard by now they were inches away from Cameron Diaz, Jason Segal, Rob Lowe and Seth Rogan!!! I am still star struck!

That night, we returned to the hotel and rested up for our second action-packed day in Barcelona. Thursday began with a trip to the beach. The girls didn't swim, but they were able to dip their toes into the Mediterranean. Shortly thereafter, we went to the Picasso museum.  What was neat about this museum in particular is that most of the works are from Picasso as a student. We learned where he studied and who all he studied. Around 5:00, we all hopped on bikes and went for a bike tour around the city. Everyone had a ball. Our favorite part was retuning to the beach and riding along the boardwalk. We called it a night after our last dinner in Barcelona as we had a very early wake up call today.

This morning, we took the train to Madrid. Madrid is absolutely beautiful. This week is a very important week here as the new king of Spain has been crowned. The city is very decorated and welcoming. After hotel check-in, we took a walking tour of the Madrid city center. We walked to the Prado museum. Rather than your typical guided tour of a museum, we decided to give the girls a scavenger hunt of various masterpieces (winners are tbd at the moment). This was so neat because it really made them observe the painting and read about the stories behind them.

We are now in the process of getting ready for bed so that we may be ready for our last day of this French / Spanish adventure. Tomorrow we will be touring Madrid by bus, touring the Royal Palace, and then do some last minute shopping. We will conclude our trip with a fun final dinner.

In case I cannot post to the blog tomorrow, I'd like to remind you of our flight itinerary for Sunday:

United Airlines - #63 to Newawk, NJ. ---- we leave Madrid at 9:35 a.m. Madrid time and arrive in Newark at 12:20 p.m. Newark time.

United Airlines - #1492 to Chicago ---- we leave Newawk at 3:52 p.m. Newark time and arrive in Chicago at 5:34 (cst).

United Airlines - #5974 to little rock ---- we leave Chicago at 8:20 and arrive in LR at 10:07 p.m.

If anything happens to our flights, we will let you know asap.

Meanwhile, the three of us (Mrs. Melandri, Mrs, Pineda, and I) cannot begin to tell y'all what a privilege it has been taking your daughters abroad. They are such a joy and have made this first combined mercy ambassador trip the best experience. Thank you for sharing them with us these past 12 days.


We will see y'all on the other side of the pond!

All the best,
Marly Jeffries