Hola

We have arrived in Spain and are already a few days into our vacation. We made a stop in NYC for a long layover and got to see all the major sights of the city and had lunch with some work friends. After hurrying back to the airport we found out our flight had been delayed another 4hrs - boo. It got delayed another 2hrs before we finally were Madrid bound at midnight. We landed around noon and quickly found our hotel and headed out onto the town. We had fun strolling the streets and stopped at several places to enjoy some tappas and sengria on the outdoor patios. The weather the first couple of days was warmer than Seattle, though still had a cool breeze. Our body clocks were alittle wonky as we splet until noon the second day (by accident) and are just starting to feel ajusted today. I think our favorite part of Madrid was finding this really cool local market where all the locals went to get groceries as well as have tappas and drinks in the evening. It was almost like a really small Pike Place Market. We caught the train down to Sevilla today and while we thought we were on the 11am train we had actually missed our 9am departure - it was a $175 mistake, bummer. After we finally made it our hotel was having plumbing problems and had to move us to a nearby hotel which the host touted as a 3 start hotel - hotel Abanico -where we quickly got situated and went out to explore. It´s much warmed down here, sunny and in the 80´s. We went and saw the Alcazar today which is Sevilla´s royal palace of the past. There is significant Islamic influence in the infastructure from when Spain was under Moorish rule so a lot of the decor and architecture is different than what you would expect. We´re getting better on our Spanish, Blane has tought me how to say ¨I would like...¨ We´ve found that if you try Spanish they´ll speak Spanish back even though they might speak English and can tell you don´t speak the local language. So while it´s a little ackward we´re getting better. Tomorrow we are off to see more of the local historical sights and soak up some sun. We´re here for another night and then head to Grenada for a couple nights. We´ll get pictures up as soon as we can. Have a good 3-day weekend.