Madrid, Spain!

 Our last and final stop was to Madrid.  When we were booking the trip (forever ago) we had the choice of having a 24 hour layover in Madrid or London.  For some reason, I thought Sean would have wanted to go to London.  I went there with my family when I was 8 years old, so I let Sean pick.  He instantly picked Madrid, without hesitation!  He studied a lot about Spain in a majority of his upper level Spanish classes, so he thought it might be cool to go there.  I will say, it was nice that ONE OF US could speak the country's language for once.  We could actually communicate with the people around us, it was glorious.

This picture basically sums up how we were feeling.  Our flight left from Venice and went straight to Madrid.  I remember Sean saying (before he passed out) that he was starting to get a little homesick.  We had been gone for two weeks at that time, so I think we were both starting to feel it.

Another thing I really liked about Europe was the served Nutella everywhere!

Our first stop after getting to our hotel was to the Madrid LDS Temple.  It was beautiful.

We ended up doing a Spanish speaking session, which I was pretty nervous about.  I can speak a little Spanish, but it's more like "Spanglish".  I can speak a lot more "dental terminology" because a lot of my patients in hygiene school didn't speak any English.  My boss thinks I'm fluent...which is the furthest thing from the truth.  Sean kept telling me it would be fine...it was not fine.

We ended up being the witness couple in the endowment session.  Don't get me wrong, I always pay attention, I never fall asleep (unlike some people I know), but I had to REALLY pay attention.  I couldn't understand 80% of what was being said so I had to watch and listen really closely...it was a little stressful to be honest.  It was even more tricky when the temple worker was trying to get through the last part at the veil.  She kept switching back and forth from English to Spanish to try and help me, and it was even more confusing. I think we started over at least 5 times.  

I'm so glad we got to go and see the Madrid Temple!  It was my first "international" temple session.  I know (for many reasons :)) I'll always remember it.

Beautiful.

We had a little down time between the temple and our evening entertainment, so we went to a little cafe down the street for some "hot chocolate".  The Cola Coa I had was delicious.  It was freezing (60 degrees) so I just had to have something to warm me up.  There was some big soccer game going on that night, so while everyone else (including Sean) was preoccupied with that, I'm pretty sure I drank at least three of these and was completely content with the glorious free Wi-fi they had.  Oh, and I'm just sitting in front of some castle...no big deal.

 Walking the streets of Madrid...

When we were planning out the trip we were looking at some of the fun things to do in Madrid.  Corral de la Moreria got some of the best reviews we had seen.  It is a authentic flamenco dinner and dance show.  It was AMAZING.

When we got into the venue, we were a little nervous because it was super tiny, and it kind of looked like a random hole in the wall place.  But, we were both blown away.  The music, dancing, and food were amazing.

 I know this is a terrible picture of the food, but it was super dark and I had to try and get a picture of how delicious it was!  

 This chick was Sean's favorite.  I know, she looks kind of scary, but she had some serious swag.  She was really fun to watch.

 This was my favorite dancer of the night.  He's the type of dancer that completely captures people.  Whatever anyone was doing at the time, they would stop and watch him dance. 

Trying to get some cute pictures of us, shocker I know.  As you can see, we were pretty packed in the restaurant.  I felt like I was eating dinner with the people sitting next to me.  We randomly met some LDS people who knew Sean's grandpa, Von Packard, and some of the other Packard family.  They were serving as mission presidents in Madrid.  Apparently we look the Mormon part, because they asked us right away if we were LDS.  I like to take that as a compliment. :)

 Get it girl.

 The grand finale!

 We loved every minute of it.  I was surprised how much Sean enjoyed it too.  I would go again in a heart beat.  Thank you Corral de la Moreria!

This was one of the coolest things we had seen our entire trip, and the perfect way to end our two week vacation in Europe.

This was taken the morning of our long flight back to the US.  Do you think we have enough luggage?  We were about to embark on our 12 hour nonstop flight back to Dallas.  Doesn't Sean look excited?  :)

I know it's taken forever to blog about our trip, there was a lot to write about!  In two weeks we saw 4 countries, and over 10 major cities.  We flew, cruised, bussed, trained, taxied, walked, scooted, and drove across Europe.  It was honestly the trip of a lifetime.  I don't know the next time we'll be able to do something like this again, but we both feel so blessed and grateful for the opportunity to be able to do it.  I know it's a trip that we'll always remember.  

I can't think of a better way to celebrate 5 years of marriage with my Sean, my best friend, forever boyfriend, and perfect for me husband.  Happy anniversary to us!  

Five years down, eternity to go...