Having obviously slept terribly due to nerves/excitement/apprehension and a hangover (well it’s the last time I was gonna be able to drink for free – thanks Dad!) the 4:15am alarm was particularly unpleasant. Did a final shuffle of my bags and were soon off to the airport (again, thanks Dad!).

First stop: Barcelona. A spot of lunch, then a train to Madrid, some dinner, sleep and a more civilised flight time to Bogotá, Colombia. Might seem counter productive to have gone east to Spain only to go back again to Colombia, but there are far more frequent and cheaper flights from Spain so, overall, makes sense cost-wise.

Travelling through Spain as we did worked out brilliantly thanks to Alex’s amazing planning. We found a delightful place for lunch in Barcelona called Vermut i a la Gàbia. Menu was in Catalan but we did our best with a little help from Google. Food was delicious, beer was ice cold and we over ordered so were duly stuffed and in need of a nap. Which is exactly what I did on the train from Barcelona to Madrid.

It was a good thing I napped all the way to Madrid as the metro was relatively busy… mostly with girlies in pink and silver going to a concert of some globally famous Colombian pop star who I of course have never heard of (not Shakira) and there were multiple line changes to contend with. We made it though, into the sweltering Madrid heat (39° anyone?) and collapsed onto our hotel room bed for a rest before heading out to a nice local place called Restaurante Campanilla with a delightful old boy running the place who brought us a plate of albóndigas, tortilla and peppers and a toast with morcilla (black pudding) and poached pear on it. Scrumptious!

Long day. I hope I can continue to keep up this level of detail as the journey continues!