After recently spending months in South America where there is rarely a full bus, a sold-out concert, or a "no vacancy" sign in a hotel, we had grown accustomed to not worrying about travel planning. While sitting at lunch, we often debated if we wanted to move on to the next country, the next town over, or just go to the local football match later that day. Truthfully, it is a rookie mistake to forget that different countries operate differently. In fact, regions within the same country may even operate with different rules. Having grown accustomed to not needing to plan ahead for regional travel, and not thinking about how we were now in Europe for the first time in a while, shortly after lunch we strolled in to the Madrid bus station ready to depart for Granada. To our surprise, despite multiple departures every hour, the next bus with 2 open seats wasn't until 2 am... over 12 hours away.

Since we needed to be in Granada by the next day, we now needed to decide how to proceed. Our first option was to throw money at the problem. We could rent a car and drive ourselves there, pay a cab driver to take us, take the considerably more expensive train, or perhaps check if there is a last minute cheap flight. Option #2 was to sit and wait. Camping out in the station would allow us to rest, catch up on our journals, eat a cheap dinner in the bus station, and people watch until we had seen it all. Option #3 was to make the most of our extra time in Madrid. We could leave our backpacks in a locker and see more of what this beautiful city had to offer. There are always more tapas to taste, museums to meander through, parks to saunter in, and people with whom to converse. After reviewing where we went wrong with our rookie mistake, we went with Option 3 and decided to make the most of our last 12 hours in Madrid.

The streets of Madrid are packed full of delights to travelers of all kinds. The restaurants which offer such plates as 'patatas bravas' and 'pulpo a la plancha' are open until the wee hours of the morning. Museums are overflowing with history. Old and new buildings grace the skyline and are evidence of highly skilled architects and laborers. An extreme example of this is the Royal Palace, the official residence of the Spanish Royal Family, now used only for state ceremonies, whose walls literally glisten with semi-precious stones and 24k gold as the ceilings drip with crystal chandeliers. While the sun was still high in the sky, we took photographs, contemplated architecture and soaked in the energy of the Spanish way of life, then did our part to wear down the path towards a tapas restaurant as the sun sank towards the horizon.

After an amazing Spanish meal and feeling tipsy from a pitcher of Sangria, we still had over 3 hours until we needed to leave for the bus station. While walking down the street discussing our options, a young man stopped Proctor to try and recruit her to come into a nearby Irish pub. He was tempting potential patrons with coupons that offered a free shot with every beer purchased. Sensing an opportunity, Proctor immediately began a serious negotiation. After some witty banter and a smile or two, her demands were met and we entered the pub with not one, but an entire fistful of coupons. Seeing as how Proctor has never been one to waste a coupon, this so-called "success" predetermined how the rest of the day was going to play out.

Needless to say, by the time we left for the bus station, Proctor was in rare form. She is not a big drinker to begin with, and so the two beers with two free shots of whisky on top of the sangria from dinner had done her in. We made it to the bus station just fine, although Proctor might not have been walking in the straightest of lines nor did she remember much about the trip. By the time we got there, we had almost an hour to wait. Proctor immediately laid her head down on my lap and fell asleep while I forced myself to stay awake and watch for the platform that our bus was departing from to be announced. Proctor had just enough strength in her to walk up three stairs to board the bus then slept the entire way to Granada. Unfortunately, the 5 hour trip was not long enough to allow her to fully recover. She complained of a headache the size of the Pyrenees when she woke up and was forced to get on her own two feet so that we could disembark.

Under normal circumstances, we rarely take cabs for any reason, instead preferring to walk and experience the city on foot. This situation, however, was different. When we emerged from the cab, we were 3 houses away from our cute little bed-and-breakfast type hostel. Proctor was barely holding it together on what felt to her like the longest walk in history until we approached the base of the steps of our hostel. It was then that her stomach could no longer hold it all in. Less than 30 minutes in Granada and she already did her part to "decorate" the town. Luckily for Proctor, since Granada is a huge college town, she fit right in. Mercifully, we were able to get into our hostel early and spent the rest of the day sleeping before spending the whole next day exploring the incredible Alhambra which I had been telling Proctor about since I first met her.

While there are many important travel lessons one could take from this story about making the best of a situation and taking advantage of any opportunity to explore a city, going with the flow even if your first plan doesn't pan out, never letting little things ruin your day even though travel is often frustrating, etc., etc., etc., the more I think of it, the moral of this story is, of course, that Proctor needs to cool it on the coupons.