We are here and we all had a good nights sleep. We arrived at the Madrid airport at 9:30 on Friday morning. We never left until 3 PM. Here is an account of what happened.
The flight was great and very smooth. Some of us slept and some stayed up through the entire flight. We arrived in Madrid and got through customs without a hitch, we picked up luggage and crates and headed to the rental car counter. This is where our day went to hell! Paula and I did all the necessary paperwork and we headed out to the cars. As we were loading everything into the cars, Paula noticed her purse was missing and Gayle was missing her laptop. Paula and Gayle headed back to the airport to see if they could locate the missing items. They had to report everything to the police.
Paula´s purse contained her passport, credit card, gps, wallet, etc. My the time Paula and Gayle finished filing a police report it was 3 PM and we were headed to the US Embassy in Madrid. We arrived at the Embassy and there was no place to park. At this point, we lost Julie and Paula and got lost ourselves trying to get back to the Embassy. We finally found a nice taxi driver that we paid to get us back to the Embassy in hopes of meeting up with Julie and Paula. When we arrived at the Embassy, Julie and Paula were no where to be found. We had no choice but to head to Scooby.
Thank goodness Gayle had the Medina Guide that contained instructions to get to Scooby. We had a manual transmission bus and I was the only one able to drive. It was quite nerve wracking because I was tired and found myself drifting. We finally pulled over so I could get something to eat and drive (Powerade and a snicker´s bar). We arrived at Scooby at approximately 7:00 PM. Met some volunteers and played with some dogs. There was also a surprise for me; Christiane from Germany was at Scooby. Christiane is in charge of the virtual adoptions for Germany and the Dutch countries. She also takes pictures for the adoption pages and the virtual adoption web pages. We had never met, only communicated through Skype, email and phone. It was wonderful to finally meet her and to be able to spend some time with her.
Although it was joyous to meet Christiane, our nerves were still very rattled because we left Paula and Julie behind in Madrid. We decided to take care of stress by going to the grocery store and shopping for FOOD, BEER AND WINE. When we arrived back at the shelter at 9:30, we were greeted by Paula and Julie. It was a wonderful, joyous reunion.
We went to our dorm, prepared our beds, ate, drank and laughed away our day until 12:30 AM. Fermin stopped by to visit us and welcome us all to Scooby.
We awoke at 8:30 AM and started working. Everyone has their jobs and they are all working very hard. There is so much to do and it is very hot here.
I will try to post some pictures tonight.
Love to everyone,
Diane, Paula, Gayle, Claire, Julia, Amy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh, Diane! Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I am relieved that you all are at Scooby, safe and sound. I hope the weather cools, and you can accomplish everything you set out to do there. My thoughts are with you all.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the update! I think I need a beer after reading this! I can only imagine how tired and stressed you were by the time you hit the dorm.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you are safely there, be careful about the heat and pet those doggies (and all the animals) from their US friends.
Gerry