Spain Wasn’t Supposed to Start Like This

Looking back, I don’t remember much about the planning phase of this trip. After the success of our last trip; Austin, Matt, and I knew we needed another trip and we threw out countless destinations such as Portugal, Czech Republic, Italy, and Hungary. Ultimately, we stumbled upon a rather cheap flight to Madrid, Spain in March of 2025 and thought it would be interesting and jumped on it. The planning was rather typical and after much thought and several late nights, we formalized a route and had our Google Drive filled with our detailed guide and spreadsheets.

As we would be flying out of Springfield, I had spent the night at Mom and Dad’s and the morning was set on fast forward as we had to pick up Austin and Matt from their house. A short car ride later, we were standing in front of the airport doors, seeing Mom and Dad’s car drift off into the distance.

We had a few hours before our departure to Chicago and we filled the time charging up our devices and batteries and talking about our past trip and what this one might hold in the future; all the while hearing the sharp sound of a click as Austin began practicing with his film camera.

We had a simple flight to Chicago before our dreaded 8 hour flight over to Spain.

Even after having a multitude of these long flights under my belt, they never get easier and this one was no exception. Countless movies, videos, and a few sleeping pills later sure do help though.

I luckily was able to snag a few hours of sleep and before we knew it, we were under the yellow canopy of the Madrid airport.

After much confusion with the attached railway station, it took us another hour before we arrived at the main station of Madrid (Puerta de Atocha) which we would come to find ourselves in several times during our time in Spain. Our journey to this station was not painless as we had gotten off several stops before until ultimately being rescued by a local providing us with directions.

We had originally earmarked a stop in Malaga to see some sights before our final destination of Granada but due to some further confusion, we ended up buying a $122 train ticket (each) to Granada but couldn’t identify the train on the platform board. Unfortunately, we had missed our intended train and had to meander our way to the busy ticket counter for some further guidance. After another hour delay, we were finally booked for Granada and set off to the platform; this time ready to see this station in our rear view mirror.

As the time to board crawled near, we left our seats behind and began to board the train to finally board the train to leave the capital behind us. At least that’s what we thought. Spain was much different compared to all of the places we had been before. Before every train journey, you must first navigate through a security checkpoint (similar to something you might encounter at an airport). After this new roadblock, we were finally in our train seats seeing Madrid finally and thankfully slip out of view.

We rode the train for around two hours in silence; still groggy from our long flight and just disappointed at how this adventure had begun.

Due to the confusion earlier in the day, we had missed our time in Malaga and now had to switch trains in Cordoba before heading to our final stop for the day, Granada. It was late afternoon when we finally arrived in Granada. The long walk to our hotel was one of mixed emotions. For one, we were all tired, frustrated, and drained from the morning's antics. However, under the bright blue sky and the shade of the countless orange trees that dotted the street, we began to feel energized with each passing step. Eventually the bright cheerful streets quickly turned into dark, graffiti filled alleyways and we found our speed gradually starting to increase.

A short time later, we found ourselves in our cramped hotel room and standing on the small balcony overlooking a plaza below (little did we know that this great view would turn rather sour later in the night).

As we glanced out into the street dotted with residents; we knew we had to set out and see more of this foreign cityscape. With only a few hours of sunlight left, we set off and began speeding through the tight cobbled streets and darting up through alleyways without any sense of direction or purpose.

Now firmly in the final remnants of the day's light, we found a small restaurant situated near a street under some large tarps. Unable to speak the language, we all sheepishly pointed at words on the menu and enjoyed a small dinner (and of course a local beer).

We found ourselves extremely grateful for our tarp covering as several moments later, the skies opened and proceeded to unleash a salvo of hail and rain. Beer in hand, in a foreign land, all the while a hail storm rages was truly an interesting experience and not one I will forget soon. With our meals finished, we slid back out into the wet streets and made our way to our hotel, stopping for a small bit of ice cream at a nearby shop. We retired rather early (8 PM) due to our exhaustion but this was the start and we were ready for what lay ahead.

To move onwards with us along our journey, click here.