Sunday 29th July

Home Time!!!
Carah was very excited as she was going to see her daughter, Gemma was very excited to see her niece and her friends, Sam was gutted and I couldn't wait to see my mum and dad.

We all got ready and sorted our things out and made sure that we had left the apartment in a good condition. We left a bottle of wine for Javier and Cruz for their kindness and being friendly. Javier said he was sad to see us go as we had been very good guests, we are really going to miss 'Danny' ha

We packed all our suitcases up in our car and waited for Xabi to arrive. When he did me, Carah and Gemma got in his car and made the start of our journey into Valladolid for our train. The journey didnt take very long, we thanked Xabi for helping us and went into the train station for some breakfast - we had to get rid of our euros :D They did proper coffee something which we had all missed so that was a plus!

The train pulled in and we got on car 7, after seeing people sat in our seats we checked our tickets again only to notice we were in car 10 so we had to maneuver our suitcases through 2 carts only to find people sitting in our seats again!! We had to try and inform them in Spanish that e had reserved our seats (well Jo had but..). The train journey took just under an hour and we soon saw the city of Madrid coming into view ... We arrived in Madrid at 12.30pm and our flight wasn't until 18.40 :/ We decided to stay in the train station and kill some time. We all took turns to explore the shops in the train station and Sam and me finally found our English newspapers and magazines .. Yay!!

At around 2.30pm we decided to travel to the airport and find somewhere to get something to eat. We found it surprising easy to get our tickets and get to the airport after figuring out which trains to get!
We arrived at the airport and had to walk miles again to get to the right Terminal, we was in Terminal 1 and had to get to Terminal 3. After about 20 minutes we arrived at our terminal at 3.30pm and still had 2 hours left until we could check in! We had something to eat at the restaurant in the airport which was as you would expect, very expensive. We were all feeling restless as we had been waiting around most of the day and just wanted to get home.

Check In time came quite quickly and we checked our bags in and Carah's and Sam's were overweight and we were flying with Ryan-Air so there was no chance they would let them through ... after sorting their bags out and putting more stuff in their hand luggage they were allowed through and finally got through to look up our gate.

Our gate was A14 and we were at gate C30 so we braced ourselves for another 20 minute trek across the other side of the airport. Me and Gemma wanted to go in Duty Free so Sam and Carah continued on to the gate, only to find 100 more Duty Free shops along the way LOL
We all arrived at the gate and settled down to wait, as it was a Sunday none of the bar were open so we couldn't have a drink to calm our nerves. Sam and Gemma went to the vending machine to get drinks while me and Carah sat down and chilled out, we heard an announcement but didn't listen to it but everyone where we were sitting got up and started rushing off in the direction we had just come. Carah asked a man and he informed us they changed the gate for the flight to Manchester!! So off we were again to gate B2. When we arrived we were right at the back of the queue and were annoyed. After a few minutes we heard another announcement that they changed the gate again to B10, there was a mad rush to get to the gate, but we were pleased as we had got nearer the front of the queue this time :D
I said 'imagine if they changed it again!' and lo and behold they did the next gate was B30 and we couldn't run through laughing, Sam ran ahead and got us a place nearer the front again this time :D We were happy but getting tired of moving, due to the gate changes take off time was 10 mins behind schedule.

Eventually we got onto the plane and got seats altogether, the pilot came on to make an announcement that due to congestion at Manchester Airport we will be delayed 1 hour and 50 mins!!! We was not happy at this point - especially when we noticed a sign earlier than said 'RyanAir - The Ontime Airline' ha ha
I phoned my mum to tell her, Carah texted her boyfriend, Gemma phoned her friends and Sam phoned his friend to inform them. Just as we all sent messages and spoke to loved one's the pilot came on again to inform us that there is good news, we will be taking off in 10 minutes!!!!

The flight went quite fast and we kept looking to see if we were back in the UK, we flew over Tameside on the way back and noticed some familiar places, getting giddy as we would see our loved ones very soon. The landing was very smooth and while waiting to got through customs we could see our bags going round and round the carousel. We eventually got our bags and went through to arrivals very excited to see our families and friends :D

We throughly enjoyed our experience living and working Valladolid. We will miss the friends we made and the atmosphere of Rioseco where we stayed. We will never forget this experience, it has shown us another way of life and taught us a lot about ourselves and the challenges we are able to face. We have all bonded together as friends and supported each other when one of us felt low or homesick. We have had lots of laughs and giggles, and would recommend taking part in Leonardo projects to anyone. We will definately be visiting Medina de Rioseco again!!!!