When I walked into O’Hare International Airport on Friday March 25, I was excited for my trip to Spain. However, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the eight hour flight to Zurich, Switzerland, or the two-hour follow-up flight to Madrid, Spain.

Our group of 11 students included seniors Javier Correa, Sam Alnemri, Nick Soloan, Liam Donahue, and Joe Facault. Juniors Tim McNamara, Jack Mulay, Jacob Correa, Nik Dimas, and myself, and sophomore Kameron Gallas. Our chaperones were Mr. Antonio Mota and Mr. John Nelson. Arriving in Madrid around 3 p.m., we met our tour director and settled into our hotel, and exhausted, finished up the day at a restaurant in Plaza De Sol, Madrid’s main plaza.

The next morning, our first full day in Madrid, started with a guided tour of the old Royal Palace, which was amazing. The walls were elegantly decorated; the whole interior beautiful. It is hard to believe that the only time the actual palace is in use is when a president from a different country comes to Spain. After the tour lunched at Mercado de San Miguel, then had the opportunity to explore the city on our own in small groups.

The next day started bright and early and we got right into sightseeing. Our group toured the famous Santiago Bernabéu, where Real Madrid plays its home football(soccer) games. After our two hour tour, we took the Metro back to the Plaza and had an hour on our own for lunch. The rest of day we explored an art museum in the northern part of Madrid.

On Monday we toured the city of Toledo, about two hours south of Madrid. The city is very old with beautifully designed buildings and bridges. After spending most of the morning and afternoon there, we headed back to Madrid for our last evening there. We had about two hours of free time to shop, eat, and just keep exploring the city.

A bus ride on Tuesday morning brought us to our next city, Segovia. In this remarkable city, we toured one of many cathedrals we saw on the trip. After the tour we went to a popular castle in which Christopher Columbus was sponsored to sail “around the world.”  To start the afternoon, we voyaged on a bus tour of the city stopping outside different landmarks.

We then spent most of the afternoon traveling to Burgos where we would spend the night in the city before making our way to Barcelona, a six hour drive. This city was a smaller one on our list and had a very quiet, sleepy feel to it. It had one “main street” that was on a river,  but had great shopping and cafes up and down.

About two hours into our bus ride to Barcelona, our bus broke down and we had to stop at a rest stop and wait for repairs. We played football in the giant parking lot with a great view of a giant mountain range. We ate home made sandwiches and talked. After the repairs we spent four more hours driving before getting to our hotel around 1o at night. We couldn’t really do anything, so we walked around the city and saw it at night.

Our stay in Barcelona left us with lasting images, such as the many Gothic buildings (left) and the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia (below). The inside of the Sagrada Familia edifice is truly amazing with very, very high ceilings and amazing stain glass which projects thousands of different colors inside. 

This was our last day in Spain and the next morning at three a.m. we were back in the airport waiting to go to Zurich, Switzerland. We took a shuttle to the plane and waited on the tarmac, which was a first for me. I fell asleep instantly on the plane to Zurich and then again on the way home.

This trip was something that I will never forget. The food, the cities, the amazing sights and museums – it all was incredible and an experience I would recommend highly for all Mount Carmel students before they leave.