4,
February 2001- Madrid Spain
We have arrived in Spain are are currently in Madrid. The flight was uneventful, but I think Air Europa has the narrowest and hardest seat cushions known to man so sleep on the plane was just about out of the question. Upon exiting the plane we got into an airport tram which was supposed to bring us from the plane to the gate, but we sat there for a while, moved about four feet and the tram ground to a halt. I think it blew its transmission judging from the stream of Spanish profanities streaming from the drivers mouth! We were transferred to another tram after a few minutes and were on our way. Hopefully this little mishap has absorbed some of the breakdown karma for the trip and we´ll have fewer problems with our trucks later on. We are currently at Monitor Group´s Madrid office catching up on some email and catching a few winks of sleep. The plan is to head out to do some sightseeing this morning and afternoon but as we have a six hour drive to Cadiz ahead of us tonight, we need to leave Madrid fairly early this afternoon. We´ll be up early tomorrow morning to venture over to the Port of Cadiz and begin the process of freeing our trucks from Spanish customs and if all goes well, we´ll have them by the end of the day tomorrow and will be in Morocco by Tuesday morning. That´s all for now. So far (knock on wood) so good!
-Paul Shumway