Arrived in Madrid

We have arrived in Madrid this morning with little rest as you can imagine after a long overnight nonstop flight from Texas. Going through the Madrid airport was an experience on itself. We had to get on a bus and then a train to get outside the secure area. Our next challenge was to find a euro’s exchange shop willing to negotiate a reasonable rate less that 22% which was the current offer. Without making much progress, we then ventured on an Uber ride to the train station in an attempt to get the early train to Pamplona. We then realized that we had spent too much time at the airport missing our train to Pamplona (arrived 5 minutes too late), hence we lost the cost of our train fare. We had now 5 hours to spare, so we ventured out of the Atocha train station in search for a bank or an exchange house to exchange our $1200 US for euros. After visiting Banco Santander, we realized that banks will not exchange our money unless we had a back account with them. Luckily, we found an exchange house with an 9% fee, and then headed out for a walk around the area and then back to the Atocha train station. So far breaking even from the unexpected cost but behind schedule. We are calling ahead to the Albergue reservations in SJPP for late arrival. We may miss daylight upon arrival at SJPP, but so far, the day has been fun, full of new experiences...Read more