• We are at the Raleigh airport, getting ready to board the plane and pilot requests all boarding to stop. The TV says breaking news.
• However, it turns out that the altitude part on our plane is bad. The pilot says he can’t fly at night without it. We have a 9 hour night flight across Atlantic Ocean to the Paris airport. Thank goodness he noticed it was bad. God thing.
• The part has to be flown in from Atlanta. This will delay our plane leaving by 3 hours. This causes half the people on our flight to jump on other flights. Our flight to Paris ends up being half full. God thing.

• We arrive in the Paris airport. We are now 6 hours ahead of the USA in time. We had 6 hour layover due to the plane delay yesterday. We are going to miss our cooking class today in Spain. The tour company was very understanding and ends up refunding \240our money even though it was way past the 24 hour cancellation policy time. \240We were able to book another cooking class (God thing) with the original place that we wanted to, now that we are not going to Italy.
• We spend our layover eating macaroons and chocolate croissants while we wait. We fly Air France to Madrid. We had a rough landing but arrive ok. God thing.
• We arrive in Madrid. We uber to our very nice and clean hotel, that is thankfully not in the center of downtown Madrid. God thing.
• We walk down the street to a nice tapas place and have the best guacamole ever. They always bring out a free dish. They brought out a plate of something with grilled onions. We each took a bite. Yuck! Turns out it was the stomach of a cow? It tasted like organ meat. We then visit the local grocery store and buy some treats.  
• We find out out that out flight to Italy, that we were not going on anyway, \240was cancelled by the airline so we may be able to get some money back. God thing.

• Due to daylight’s savings time we are now 5 hours ahead of the USA. we found out that the metro (subway) near us is down for maintenance for the week. This requires us to uber everywhere we go. This was another God thing as we find out later that this keeps us from being on the local public transit a lot.
• We take a short walk \240down street to pastry shop for coca colas and pastries for breakfast. Then we uber to the center city of Madrid.
• We meet our guide for a walking tour and tapas tasting. We eat \240at one on the oldest tapas places in Madrid. Grace and I are the only people, as the 2 other people in tour will meet us at the park. We had a typical tapas dish with some really good shrimp. We tried a bite of hen.
• The tour guide returns and he uses his metro card to get us to Retiro Park. \240Only 2 other people on our tour. God thing. He speaks in Spanish and English as we walk all over the park. We see a beautiful greenhouse for the queen from 1885. It was called the Crystal Palace. There is also a lake in the park where people were paddling around on boats. This was like the Central Park of Madrid. There were lots of green space for picnics and playgrounds for kids.
• After this we rode the hop on hop off bus around Madrid. Today was International Women’s Day. There were tons of women in the street, wearing purple and having a parade. They blocked off lots of the streets.
• The Reina  Sofia Museum had free hours and due to the parade, hardly no one was there. God thing. We toured the museum and saw some of Picasso's art,  among others.  
• We ate some amazing Italian food for supper. I took a bite of Grace’s truffle fettuccini. It was the best ever. I had pizza and it was delicious. Because they eat supper late at night around 8:30 and we were eating at normal American hours, there was only 2 other customers in \240the restaurant. God thing.

• We ride the hop on hop off bus tour around Madrid.
• We decide to tour the Royal Palace. It was HUGE! They only let you take pictures in the first 2 rooms. I have no words for how big the dinning room table was. Everything was exquisite. The frescos on the ceiling were unbelievable. The chandeliers, clocks, crown, scepters, etc had gold in everything.
• That evening we had our cooking class. There were only 2 other people in it. God thing. They were from St. Louis University. One was studying abroad for the semester. They were around Grace’s age. Our instructor was great! She taught the 4 of us how to cook some amazing dishes. We made sangria, bruschetta, chorizo tapas, shrimp tapas, potatoes tapas, fruit dessert, etc...We worked in pairs and she kept our dishes that we made separate. At the end we had a nice and delicious meal of everything that we cooked. We also tried olives that tasted like pizza! We don’t like olives but these were great! That was truly a wonderful experience!

• We took a day tour trip to La Mancha, the windmills of Don Quixote, a medieval castle and an old winery. There were only 2 other people on our tour. God thing. It was a mother and daughter from the USA.
• The landscape was amazing. We saw tons of grape bushes and olive trees. The grapes are grown on bushes so they can hand pick clusters for harvest. The manchego cheese was amazing! We toured the old winery. We toured the Don Quixote museum and house. We went in a true medieval castle. We went up in the windmills and saw how they worked. The windmill scenery was breathtaking!
• We had a delicious tapas lunch. I tried everything but I could not bring myself to eat the very rare meat! Grace ate it and was fine though. We had a delicious pumpkin soup appetizer and dessert.
• We saw a stork nest with a stork in it on top of an old cathedral.
• We drove to an old town for sunset. We walked in the very old and very steep streets where they do the running of the bulls. We also sat in the square where they have the bull fight.
• Because there were only 4 of us, our tour guide dropped us off at our hotels that night. God thing.

• We woke up early, got to the airport and flew to Barcelona. It was only about a 1 hour flight.
• Barcelona was beautiful and reminded me of LA, California! You have the mountains, the beaches, the palm trees and the Rodeo Drive shopping.
• We took a hop on hop off bus tour and saw where the Olympics were held and lots of other sites. There were cruise ships and yachts in the harbor.
• We had tickets to enter Park Guell. We arrived at our designated time, took pictures and looked around.
• Then we had gelato and took the hop on bus to the beach. We took pictures there and found lots of sea glass.
• We had tickets to enter the ice room at Barcelona. They give you jackets and gloves to wear. Everything inside is made of ice. It was neat.
• We were able to travel around and make it to all our ticketed events on time and see this beautiful place in a day! God thing. We had a delicious pasta meal and headed back to the airport to fly back to Spain.
• When we get back ti the hotel, aka wifi, Grace finds out that her college has extended Spring Break by a week and then will have classes online.
• That was first sign to us that things were changing in the USA.

• We took a bus tour to Toledo and Segovia today.
• Because we were in an English speaking group, our group was smaller. God thing.
• We wore something on our ear called a whisper. The guide could be way in front of you talking and you could hear what he was saying with no problem through your personal ear piece.
• In Toledo we saw some very old churches and cathedrals. We tried marzipan, which they are know for. It is delicious!Grace loved the ham that they had there and are famous for as well.
• We then traveled to Segovia. This was a beautiful place! We saw the Roman aqueduct from the first century AD.  We walked on the old streets and town.
• We saw and toured the famous Alcazar medieval castle. It was said to have been an inspiration for Cinderella’s castle at Disney.
• We had paella (a famous spanish rice dish) for lunch and the marzipan cake (ponche segoviano) that they are known for. We sat outside to eat on this beautiful old cobblestone street. Most streets are that. It was beautiful!
• We have had great weather the entire trip and no rain. God thing. We boarded the bus and headed back to the hotel.

• We wake up early and head to the airport. Our flight, which we booked last year, was on time. God thing. This flight, ended up being the last one to the USA that day out of Madrid. God thing.
• You see, as we had come to find out the day before, President Trump was not allowing any European travel starting at midnight that night.
• There were so many teary eyed USA foreign exchange students who were woken up the day before to panic stricken parents telling them to pack everything as their plane was leaving in 4 hours, as one girl would tell us.
• It was an uneasy feeling as we really didn’t know what we would be facing back home.
• When we started this trip, Spain was not on the travel concern list. We would soon find out that it had just been added, 2 days before our return to the USA.
• Aside from smaller crowds and most asians, and a few spainards wearing masks, things had seemed pretty normal in Spain.
• To be cautious, \240I had taken clorox wipes and wiped down every plane we got on, the hotel room and our phones each night. Of course we used tons of hand sanitizer. We also took thieves drops in honey almost every day while we were there.
• But make no mistake, God was the one who protected us!
• We found out our cooking school foreign exchange friend had gotten out on the plane the day before.
• I watched one American girl, who was studying abroad, cry and cry as our plane took off, because she didn’t have closure and time to say goodbye to friends in Spain.
• We had a smooth plane ride with delicious food, thank you Delta. I watched a lot of movies and tv shows as each seat had a tv built in. Grace and I even played games on the tv.
• We made it to Altanta and went through customs with no problem. God thing.
• We got to our departure gate for Raleigh as Trump was addressing the nation. He said that effective immediately there would be stricter airport screenings. God thing as we would find out, just the next day, people would wait over 6 hours to get through screenings.
• We boarded our next flight to Raleigh. They mentioned that the pilot would be retiring after he landed and everyone clapped in appreciation for him. It was a \240smooth flight \240and we made it back home to the USA. God thing.

• We find out that Spain and France go into a lockdown. Panic ensues over there because cases of Covid-19 have begun to rise.
• All of the parks and museums and places we saw have been locked down and the gates are closed.
• Police are not allowing people out except for work, doctor, medicine, grocery, care for the elderly. God thing that we were able to fly back to the USA yesterday.
• I decide to continue to stay with Grace at her apartment. The CDC is asking people to self quarantine for 14 days if you traveled to a certain place. Spain was not on that list before our trip but was added while we were over there.
• We have pie for pie day. 3.14
• I get the call that Governor Roy Cooper has shut down all NC public schools until March 30th.

Today is Day 15 of our self quarantine simce we returned to the USA and all praise be to Jesus that we are both completely fine and will be headed home! Here are a few pictures of our self quarantine time together.