Madrid, Ole!

Thomas got sent on a TDY (temporary deployment) in the middle of January to Albacete, Spain to be part of the crew from RAF Lakenheath taking part in NATO's Tactical Leadership Program. While I hate to have him gone for any length of time, it was much better knowing it would only be for a month this time, instead of six months. Plus, most TDY's are different than regular deployments - the guys will get weekends off (usually) and as long as they have permission they can explore the off-base area as well. Since we knew TDY's were more lax, we were hoping to be able to meet in Madrid about halfway through Thomas' time there and celebrate our anniversary! For once everything went according to plan and the Air Force didn't cause any problems for our rendezvous. I flew in on a Friday afternoon and made my way to our apartment all by myself, without asking for directions! Usually Thomas is the navigator, so I was pretty nervous about finding my way by myself, but it turned out to be easy. I explored a bit on my own before it got dark outside, and headed back to the apartment to wait for Thomas to arrive. He was taking the train with some friends after they all got off of work, and were due to get in around 11:30pm since it was a two hour train ride. I was anxiously waiting at the apartment, running from window to window to see if he was coming down the street...and by 12:15am I had worked myself into a little panic. His new cell phone plan doesn't have international calling/texting so I had no way to communicate with him. Finally at 12:20am he came around the corner and I was SO excited to see him! 

On Saturday morning we slept in, had a nice lunch in Plaza Mayor, and met up with the Sandeman's walking tour. We have enjoyed these free walking tours in a couple of cities we have visited, and we like to do them on the first day so we can get the history of the city as well as get oriented with the landmarks and get an idea of what else we want to see. Our guide was great and we got to hear lots of interesting tidbits about the city. We had some delicious dulce de leche ice cream after the tour, and took a nice siesta!

Plaza Mayor

Bridge where many people used to commit suicide from, until the government put up another plastic barrier behind the metal bars, and it drastically reduced the suicide numbers.

Sobrino de Botin - oldest restaurant in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records

Pope John Paul II statue in front of the cathedral

Cathedral

That's a lot of beer caps!

Madrid Opera House

Thomas in front of the Palace

These statues supposedly used to be on top of the Palace, until one night an old Queen had a nightmare that they were attacking her. She ordered that they all be taken down, and they are now on the grounds around the Palace.

The street our apartment was on - a great location!

We had a nice anniversary dinner at Venta el Buscon. The restaurant was perfect - delicious local food, friendly waiters, and a fun atmosphere. The language barrier was evident here - although I remember some spanish, I'm not very fluent. I tried to cancel our order of cheese tapas, because I was afraid we had ordered too much, but I didn't communicate my request properly. I'm glad I didn't though, because I think that was my favorite part of the meal, along with the sangria. ;) After dinner we met up for drinks with some of Thomas' friends who had come into Madrid also. Madrid has some of the most active nightlife I've ever seen - I've never been to New York, but I bet Madrid could give them a run for their money as "the city that never sleeps". It was so fun to be out on the town, the atmosphere was just amazing!

Thomas at dinner

Cheese tapas - delicious!

Three Years!

Happy anniversary to the best man I know - my sweet husband! We may not get to be together (in fact, we're one for three on anniversaries so far), but he always can make me feel loved and appreciated from far away. Three years down, and a lifetime to go! :)

A Hogmanay New Years!

Thomas and I had been hearing all about how amazing Edinburgh's New Years celebrations are since we moved here, and since Thomas was home this year, we decided it was time to check it out for ourselves! The base travel agency organized a bus up to Edinburgh on New Years Eve Day and was to leave the city at 2am after all of the celebrating. Since we've already been to Edinburgh we figured that would be the perfect choice for us, especially since we just got back from Slovenia the day before New Years Eve. 

We went with a group of friends and had plenty of laughs and snacks on the way up to Edinburgh, and we got a jump start on the "celebrating" thanks to some flasks and Camelbaks full of wine. ;) Edinburgh was just stunning all lit up and decorated for Christmas, especially with all of the old historic buildings and the castle as the backdrop. We wandered around the city and took in the atmosphere, had some mulled cider (delicious!), checked out the carnival rides and skating rink, and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner to meet up with some more friends. After dinner we wandered some more, hopped from pub to pub, and spent far too much time waiting in line for Porta-Potties (seriously, it was a half-hour wait every time!) while waiting for the fireworks to start. The fireworks show was well worth the wait though, it was the best display I've ever seen! They set the fireworks off over Edinburgh Castle, and that just added to the spectacle. We made our way back to our bus, and were back on the road by 2:15am - it was a very quiet ride home, thank goodness!

I'm so glad we went - Hogmanay was definitely worth the trip and craziness of the city, and any excuse to go to Edinburgh is fine by me! :)

Thomas and I

Massive amounts of Porta-Potties...but it still didn't seem like enough!

The carnival with Old Town in the distance

Skating rink

The ladies

The gents

Spectacular fireworks!

My NYE bestie :)

Skiing in the Julian Alps!

Days two and three in Slovenia we finally got to hit the slopes! I'd been waiting two years for the chance to ski in the Alps and I was beyond excited. Thomas has only snowboarded in the past, and had never been skiing, so I gently nudged him to ski while we were there because I felt I could teach him to ski better than trying to teach him to snowboard! We spend the first half of Day 1 on the bunny slope while Thomas learned the basics, and I brushed up on my skiing. After lunch we tried out a blue slope and although it was a little rough on Thomas, he was an amazing sport, and just kept trying! He hurt his knee a little bit towards the end of the day, so I got in a couple of runs before we had to catch the shuttle back to Bled. Day Two was even more fun - everything seemed to click for Thomas and by the end of the day he was beating me down the mountain! I had so much fun, and I loved to watch all the little kids fly down the mountain - I'd say about 80% of them were better skiers than I am...plus the little guys are so adorable in their snow suits. :)

Bled has a great system set up for tourists wanting to go ski while staying in their town. If you purchase your lift tickets (minimum two days) from the Tourist Information Center on the lake, it includes your ride on the Ski Bus. The Ski Bus departs Bled in the morning, picking up at several spots around town (including right outside our hotel!), and picks up at the slopes in the afternoon to bring everyone back. It was so nice to not have to worry about renting a car to get to the mountain, and we rented skis on the mountain so we didn't have to lug those around with us either. Once you get to the base of the ski resort, you take a cable car up to "snow level" and can rent skis, hang out in the lodge, or go up on the lifts from there. The Ski Bus would take you to one of the two ski resorts in the area, Vogel or Krvavec, and your lift passes from the Tourist Office were good for either resort - you could even mix and match. We chose to go to Vogel both days since that was where we rented our equipment from, but we heard great things about Krvavec as well. We really enjoyed Vogel, it suited our beginner skiing needs just fine. When we went (end of December) it was still near the beginning of the ski season and I would say only about 50% of the slopes were open, but we heard that in two to three weeks it would be in full swing. All in all, we were so happy with our ski destination, and would happily go back there, especially a little bit later into the ski season!

We started on the bunny hill to refresh our skiing memory ;)

The Lodge

View from the Lodge - the cloud cover was so low everywhere, it was beautiful!

Thomas tearin' it up on the slopes ;)

Vogel bunny hill

Ready to go on our first blue run!

Check out those hot dogs - delish!

The cable car that took us up the mountain 

The inter tubes on the bunny hill - I wanted to go! :)

Look at all of that firewood!

We saw a couple of dogs on the mountain - this guy was just chillin' by the lodge!

sLOVEnia

I can't claim to have come up with sLOVEnia on my own, it was all over their tourist-y shirts...but we did LOVE Slovenia so I thought it was fitting. ;)

Ever since I found out we were moving to the UK, I had visions of skiing all the time. Well, it turned out England is flat and not as cold as I thought, so the only skiing available here is indoor skiing, which I refuse to participate in. We shifted our sights to skiing in the Alps at least once while we are stationed over here, and this year worked out perfectly. I originally started by researching the Swiss Alps and French Alps, but it seemed those locations were geared towards one week stays, and staying for less than a week was exorbitantly more expensive for some reason.Someone mentioned Lake Bled, Slovenia to me via Facebook, and as soon as I looked up pictures online I knew we must go there! 

Normally I make us take public transportation to get places (you know, because I'm cheap), but poor Thomas always wants to take a taxi (I hate taxis). This time I decided I'd be a nice wife, and I arranged a car to pick us up at the airport and take us to our hotel. It also worked out that it was only 3 Euros more per person than taking the bus, and would take us 1/3 of the time to get to Bled...so everyone wins! ;) I highly recommend this service if anyone ever needs to travel from Ljubljana to Bled - the driver was so friendly and even gave us a mini tour of the city and pointed out the Tourist Office and good places to eat before dropping us off at our hotel. 

Once we got to our supposedly three star hotel, that was more like a one star stuck in the 70's, we bundled up and headed out to get our lift tickets for the next couple of days, walk around the lake, and check out the castle. The city and area around the lake was simply beautiful, and even though it was pretty chilly outside there were a ton of people wandering around everywhere - it was a beautifully sunny day! We made the trek up to the castle, but the billions of stairs were worth it when we saw the views from the top. There was a nicely done museum inside of the castle, and my favorite part was the castle's forge. The blacksmith that creates the items for the castle is from the fourth generation of blacksmiths, and he uses the ore that is prevalent around the castle to create the items. I couldn't resist an iron key from the forge, it was my one and only souvenir of the trip. :)

After a quick nap we decided to check out the local nightlife - we only ended up going to one pub, mainly because they kept bringing us free drinks! We got to try some Slovenian beer and whiskey, and once the bartender found out we were from the States and Phoenix Suns fans...the drinks kept coming! Eastern European countries tend to enjoy basketball a lot, and our bartender knew that Slovenian basketball player Goran Dragić played for the Suns, so he was excited to talk to us, and we really enjoyed getting to talk to him. Then we were off to bed to prepare for a day of skiing in the morning!

Our first glimpse of the lake!

Thomas' fatty hamburger!

Bled Castle

Thomas and I, Lake Bled

Far too many stairs to get to the castle ;)

View from the top of Bled Castle

That's my kind of wine! 

Beautiful Nativity scene set up in the city

We loved all of the Christmas decorations still up

We got free drinks everywhere we went in Slovenia - amazing! :)