Martes

What a weird day this turned out to be. 

So, Michelle comes in this morning, wakes me up and asks me if I want to go take a walk...why would I want to take a walk when I had trouble falling asleep?  Of course, my first question is...are we going somewhere on this walk...thinking she's ready to go for our day trip...nope she was really meaning just a walk.

As requested, I get a 30 minute warning before our scheduled departure to make the train for our day trip.  Now this was moving along fine until I went to take a shower.  Water running, I step into the shower and this is followed by me calling for Michelle.  Of course, she assumes I'm asking for something unnecessary, so she was not speedy.  She said, "Once she heard the shower go off she knew it must be important."  O it was...so the door of the shower is comprised of 3 panes that are in parallel when open and in a line when closed (i.e. the door is closed).  Unfortunately, as i was getting in the shower the bottom pieces that keeps them aligned had fallen out, so the panes were more or less falling out of place.  No worries...fixed with a little handy work and Michelle's encouragement of my ideas (ok, based on her telling me, no, don't, not a good idea, etc... maybe she thought I was actually breaking it more).  Note: She was helping the whole time with the operation.

So we make it to the train station and wait in line only to discover that the line wasn't really a line for the windows.  Actually, you needed to take a ticket and wait until it is your number's turn.  By the time we made it there with our little shower set back and discovered our train station line situation, it was apparent that there was no day trip for us to Toledo, Segovia or Salamanca.  Now, there are some self serve stations you can use, but we chose not to since we thought we could get the <26 years discount....so much for saving money.  You need a European Driver's License for that :(.  On a plus, we met some lovely ladies who gave us insight into the three places and their thoughts.  One even recommended a place called Aranjuez, saying it was "bonita" (pretty), but didn't remember what was there.  We proceeded to buy our day trip tickets for the next couple of days.  After that, I looked at my sister and said let's go to Aranjuez...worse case it's terrible and we just turn around...she was in!

Aranjuez

We were told the journey was 50minutes each way.  As we got close to the station we looked at each other with uncertainty. 

On the train



Out windows as we started to get close to our station



Arrival

So you know it's bad when you go into the bathrooms only to realize, you have no problem holding it...and even worse when you can't find the exit.  We did make it outside and even better...found a map.

Good Sign when I am recognizing words of locations on a map...Palacio.  We started walking towards it.

Beautiful Day...Always a good start

Views along the way

Michelle asked if I wanted a picture of the water....I think it's been a while since she was at the beach?

We made it!

It was very pretty on the outside (we didn't end up taking a tour though)

Garden behind the palace

We weren't really sure about this statue...

Lots of places were closed for their Siestas and seeing this made me realize I could definetly go for more fiestas!

Fresh Eggs...put in the fridge after purchased.  Sis made me some eggs this morning...pretty tasty!

Not sure if I'd get into just grabbing slice...I like my shaved ham in the fridge I can grab when I'm hungry

Homepathics by prescription available...I'd love for that to be the case in the US, so maybe insurance would cover at least a little bit of the cost!

Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh!

For being a location that being a location that started off not looking so appealing, it was worth the short trip (we're pretty sure it was less than 50 min to get there).  We decided that I look like the younger sister in this picture...what do you think?

Learning of the day:

-If the exchange rate seems high then it probably is...not every bank offers the same one.  First atm was around 1.54 USD to 1 EUR, second atm was around 1.45 USD to 1 EUR and current exchange rate is 1.444 USD to 1 EUR....glad I waited for atm #2!