going to Madrid

Yes, when you put the carseat in the car for the baby, you lose a

not bored on a carousel

place for someone else to sit.  So, the only way to get everyone in the cars is to take out the carseat and hold Oscar for dear life because we’re driving in a taxi bus thing around Paris.  We even go through the Etoile around the Arc de Triomphe which everyone was excited about  

wedding pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower

because it seems so daunting to have that many lanes of traffic going that many different directions in a roundabout.  We survive the ride with Oscar pressed up against the window the whole time because he can finally see out for real unlike when he is buckled in.  We come screeching to a halt at 

 Charles De Gaulle to find out that our plane is going to be late.  And by late, we mean that we have 5 hours to kill in this airport.  Which is excruciating with a baby.  He naps some, he goes up and down the escalator with me, with students, with John and then bothers the hell 

 out of everyone in the waiting area.  I can visibly see people shrinking away from us and thinking, “Is this terror going to be on my plane?”  But once on the plane, he cries for two minutes for form’s sake and then goes to sleep for the entire flight to Madrid.  John got to 

hold him and have his arms nearly fall off from the dead weight of a baby sleeping, but at least we got to sit together and I could help him get stuff he needed throughout the flight.   We arrive in Madrid in the middle of the night and have to cram onto two different 

bored students, but at least there is Wifi

 airport shuttles to get into the city.  Indira is nice enough to stay with me and Oscar to wait for the next shuttle because I know that I have John’s maps and he most likely can’t remember the path from the stop.  My phone app that is a map of the new city says that it 

is 6 kilometers to the hotel, so when John and the guys get there, we decided to take another bus up to the stop and it’s really not that far away, but everyone was tired of walking.  Rachel’s brother has joined us for this leg of the trip and helps get us up and checked in since he speaks Spanish.  This is a 

and again and again and again

true hostel and I have flashbacks to when I stayed in places like this in college.  It has very few niceties, but the essentials are there including a bathroom in the room and AC.  It also has the advantage of being on the Gran Via, Madrid’s 5^th avenue, and being cheap.  What I didn’t think about was the incredible amount of noise that a large city can make on its largest thoroughfare at all hours of the night.  We went and ate at the Burger King right beside the hotel because we were starving and exhausted.  So, exhausted that we threw away a pacifier with the food.  We plan on taking these away as soon as we get home, but when you still have a transatlantic flight left, you want one left to help his ears.  But it’s really late and considering how many moves and strolls we’ve had where a dropped pacifier had to be found, it’s a miracle that we just finally lost one.