Day 1: Madrid

Today began what seems like days ago.  We had an early flight from Riga to Madrid and arrived here at 10:00ish.  We decided that the first thing that we need to do was to reserve all of our train tickets.  Since we already have a Eurail pass, all we need is the reservation.  This is where each country differs in how they deal with Eurail pass users.  In Germany we just needed to get on the train, but since here, in Spain and Portugal, they have assigned seating and we needed to make all of the reservations.  Before leaving Latvija we had planned out ton the minute which trains we were going to take and where we were going which made the reservation process a lot faster.  We lucked out and got all the trains that we had planned on.  The only thing was that we waited for nearly 3 for our number to be called so that we could make these reservations.  Thankful the train station has places to eat and bank machines so we could really take care of everything. Once our reservations were made, we were off to wander the city.  A few days prior to the trip my iPhone decided to stop working.  I restored it twice in once week and upon the third time that it wanted to restore, it was not able to go through the entire process and now doesn't even turn on.  So I was hoping to fix this in Madrid because they have an actual Apple store and not just a reseller like in Riga.  So we headed out to try and do that first.  Unfortunately to find out that the Apple store is out side of the city and quite a trip to get there.  So my hope of getting it fixed in Madrid was put on hold.  I hope to now fix it in Barcelona.   So we decided to head to the down town area to wander around and to find sangria.  Oh sangria how I love thee!!  We didn't have a set plan because we would be back in Madrid later on in the trip to really see the sights. After wandering for a few hours, we found dinner and finally made our way back to the train station.  Our first leg of the trip would be Portugal.  Armed with a few snacks and bottles of water be grabbed our things and settled into our seats for the over night trip to Lisbon.  Not the most comfortable trip but it was fine.