Longest Day Ever

 Vacation-planning-us strikes again. Today we learned that sometimes less is more. We left Barcelona this morning to journey to Malaga. When planning the trip we knew that our train would pass through Madrid so I insisted that we should spend some time there to see the city. Therefore, we ended up with an 8:00 am train to Madrid and 6 hours to kill before our next train to Malaga.

We had to get out of bed at 6:00 am which is hard for us since we rarely get to bed before 1 or 2 am. Then we struggled to get a taxi so we ended up dividing into 2 taxis to get to the train station. The kids were not happy about the early morning and really struggled. We were all grumpy and sleepy. 

Ammon had found a storage place for luggage close to the train station, so after our train arrived we stuffed our bags into some lockers and then went in search of food. Once we were no longer hangry we started our Madrid adventure. We had booked a tour on one of the hop on. hop off buses that take you to all the sites. We drove by a lot of awesome buildings.

Madrid Train Station

We jumped off the bus at the Columbus monument and poked around for a bit looking at all the different statues and what not there.

Our next stop was at a park where they had a big monument to Cervantes. The kids enjoyed the park. It had a lot of fun playground equipment. The equipment that wasn't in the shade had misters attached which felt really nice in the heat.

We walked up the hill where we had an awesome view of the city. 

We also walked by this museum and learned that it was an Egyptian temple that they brought to Madrid.

After leaving the park we went around on the bus some more looking at a few more sites. Then we jumped off and went in search of food to take on the train. Unfortunately, the only store we could find was a Ukrainian market. We didn't find much to take on the train, but we did find cyrok bars which are a treat that I ate a ton of while living in Russia. The kids and I each got one and the kids declared it to be the most "mid" treat ever. When I told them it was one of the best things I ate in Russia they decided they do not want to visit Russia because of the food. Fair.

After we failed at getting groceries we retrieved our luggage and headed back to the train station. We found a bakery and got some croissants and then boarded our train. I am telling all of this like it was just another day out site seeing, but in truth, we were all exhausted, hot, and grumpy. None of us were super excited about seeing Madrid, we really just wanted to get to our next place and honestly, it was a lot. 

We arrived in Malaga at 8:40 pm. We knew the car rental place closed at 9:00 pm so Ammon darted off the train to get to their office and the kids and I followed a bit slower. We got all the paperwork finished after 9:00 pm. They were trying to close. The lady helping Ammon told him where to go to retrieve the car, but it didn't make a lot of sense. We searched around outside looking for this supposed hotel that had a parking garage and the cars but couldn't see it. Ammon found a man who had been in the office returning his car and asked where he had returned it and found out the cars were under the train station. We went down in search of this car but didn't find it. There were a few people down there who worked for another car rental place and they were as baffled as we were. We tried an information desk and they had no idea where the car could be or where a hotel with more cars could be. We decided to go back outside to look and on the way Ammon stopped a security guard who got on his radio and found out where we needed to go. We had been lugging around all our luggage for a good 45 minutes by now looking for this car, but we did find the hotel and the car. Once loaded we struggled to find the exit to the garage. It was on the wrong side of the road just to keep things nice and clear, but we eventually left and headed out. 

We had to drive about 30 minutes to Marbella which is where we are staying outside of Malaga. On the way we got to see the full moon rising and it was absolutely beautiful peeking out over the water. It was red and huge when it came over the horizon. We finally made it to our Air BnB and met the nice gal who owns it. She showed us around. By this time it was about 11:00 pm. We were all exhausted, but also hungry and most places were closed. Ammon needed to jump on a work call so we waited and unpacked. When he was done we headed out to visit the McDonalds down the road that was still open, it was nearly midnight.

As we closed the door to our place we realized we didn't have the keys. We had locked ourselves out of our apartment. It was so late, but thankfully the sweet lady who owns this place was still awake and agreed to come back to let us back in. Ammon waited for her and the kids and I decided to walk along the beach to McDonalds. 

The view from our Air BnB.

The kids all enjoyed walking along the beach by the light of the full moon. It was really beautiful. The girls found some shells and enjoyed running in the waves. Somehow Ammon beat us to McDonalds. We arrived shortly after he did and we finally had some food. As we were finishing the meal Cormac mentioned how exhausted he felt now that he wasn't being distracted by hunger. We headed home and were able to finally get into bed at around 1:30 am. It was such a long day. We are so excited to be at the beach though for one of our last few weeks in Europe. Also, I have learned some very valuable lessons about planning a vacation. Sometimes it is okay to leave some things to visit on a return trip.