Saturday, April 30, 2016

Turtles in Traffic

I Ubered (if that's not a verb yet, it should be) to the tapas reception. It was a very different experience from my first tapas reception four years ago, when I wasn't even sure where I was going and didn't know anyone once I got there.  This time I knew several people when I walked in.

On the way, we passed two vehicles full of young men, one of them all dressed as Ninja Turtles.  I wasn't able to get a picture, unfortunately, and it is hard to describe.  OK, picture a picnic table on wheels, with several guys on each side, facing inward.  Only instead of a bench, they are all sitting on bicycle seats, peddling like mad to power the vehicle.  They are also drinking.  And on the public streets of Madrid, in Saturday evening traffic. Spain is different - in very many ways!

It turned out that several of us had been at the park today. Mike was there, as were Shirley and Herb, from Texas, who were watching the same band as I was, and also couldn't figure out the theme of the medley.  I never did see Mike, and of course hadn't met Shirley and Herb yet.  It was a police band, by the way - I should have guessed from the police van sitting there.

Shirley, who reminds me a lot of Sharon Bloomquist, also told me about the botanical garden at Retiro, which I really should have visited. It's on the list for next time (hey, it took me three trips just to get to Retiro).  She also said Cibeles has art galleries on every floor that are well-worth the time, as is Casa de America, across the street.

The group seems nice.  I didn't quite meet everyone, but so far there are three people from Atlanta, a couple from Australia, two from California, one from New York, Shirley, who is Australian but lives in Austin, TX with her husband, Herb, who is originally from Cincinnati, one Canadian, and me.  That leaves four that I don't know yet.  There will be 10 Spaniards, which means lots of free time for the Anglos.  Stopped at VIP's for some diet Coke for the road, and now I need to pack up for tomorrow morning.  It should be fun!

EDIT:  The other Anglos turned out to be a couple from South Africa, a woman from Florida, and a woman from the UK.

Parc de Buen Retiro

Today has been really glorious so far.  The weather is perfect, for one thing.  It is in the 50s, according to Accuweather, but it feels much warmer.  The sky is clear and the breeze is gentle.  I had promised myself that if the weather cooperated today, I would finally go and explore Retiro Park, so today was the day!

The park is about three blocks from my hotel, and the route took me right past the Prado museum.  Even though it was early, by Madrid standards (10:00), there was a line at the museum that turned the corner of the building.  I was glad that I had decided against that on this trip (unless it had been raining, of course).  There was almost no one around when I entered the park, which was originally owned by the Spanish monarchy. The park was created as part of the San Jeronimo el Real Church, in 1505.  It has been enlarged and changed many times over the years, and was opened to the public in 1767.  It finally became property of the city in 1868.



It is currently 350 acres of shade and ornamental trees, flowers laid out in intricate gardens, galleries, monuments, statues and fountains.  The centerpiece is a beautiful lake where you can rent row boats.  The backdrop of the lake is a monument to King Alfonso XII, a semi-circle of columns and steps with a statue in the middle of it.  It's a popular place to walk, climb (if you are a little kid), listen to music being performed, sit in the sun, and whatever else people do on a sunny Saturday.  There was a young man playing guitar on the steps of the statue, and he was surrounded by an adoring crowd of young people, most, if not all, young ladies.  Maybe he was famous, or maybe he was just cute, but they were fascinated.  From across the lake I could hear a couple of different musical groups.  One was a little band.  There was something very surreal about standing at a monument to a Spanish king, hearing a band playing "New York New York".  :)    I grabbed a couple of nearby geocaches (why not?) and continued on around to hear more music.  The front side of the lake, by this time, had become the sort of outdoor mall/entertainment center that you would see at Sunset Celebration on Key West - tarot card readers, magicians, costumed characters of all kinds, immigrants selling sunglasses and jewelry from blankets on the ground, musicians. 

When I got around to the band, they began playing a medley of songs whose theme I still cannot work out.  Some of the songs included Bad, Material Girl, What a Feeling, Let's Get Physical (was it 80s music?), Impossible Dream, Phantom of the Opera, Climb Every Mountain, Chariots of Fire (was it Broadway?  Movies?), and then the John Williams Olympic Fanfare.  I'm still puzzled.



I also went down to see the Crystal Palace, which sits on a small pond in a beautiful grove of trees.  It is currently empty, but I am sure they must use it for something.  On the way back, I passed the Palacio de Velaquez, which is currently housing an art exhibit.  It was free, so I wandered in.  These were the works of a man named Remy Zaugg.  There were some people there who were clearly enraptured by the work.  But I would guess (just judging by the eyerolls and giggling) most were more in my camp, which I would describe as "somebody paid for this??".  Maybe I'm just not smart enough to appreciate it properly or something, but a plain blue square is a plain blue square to me.  I don't get how that is art.  Especially not several sizes of the same blue square on a wall, each with its own little name tag.

The park began to get really crowded and busy, and though little Spanish toddlers chasing pigeons are awfully fun to watch, I headed back toward the hotel.  I got a ham and cheese wrap and some sliced apples, and ate outside, listening to a saxophone player play the same song he was playing when I passed him on my way to the park, four hours earlier.  (In fact, right now in my room, five floors above him, he is still playing the same song, apparently the only one he knows.)

Almost time to get ready for the Vaughantown tapas reception.  We leave in the morning for Belmonte.  

Friday, April 29, 2016

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Madrid is undergoing a facelift.  It always has been, to some extent, but after three years away it seems very dramatic.  Lots of building work everywhere, maybe fewer beggars in the street, lots of new stores and restaurants, many of the buildings in Puerta del Sol covered with scaffolding.

Another change - a much heavier police presence everywhere. The national police are carrying rifles (which makes my favorite ATM near the hotel extra safe, since there is a policeman stationed at the little park about 20 feet away).  I also saw police with rifles in other locations, like by the Mexican embassy.

Just as an aside, I have to say the police in Spain, especially the national police, are, shall we say, exceptionally attractive?  I asked a Spaniard at my first Vaughantown if that was some sort of requirement, since I had noticed it, and she laughed and said yes, it was. (Her former boyfriend had been a national policeman.)

Anyway, to backtrack a little, we got into Madrid at about 9:00.  It was our plane's very first flight, Mike heard.  I enjoyed the walk from the airport bus stop to the Westin.  There is a beautiful little park that runs for several blocks between the north and south lanes, with little playgrounds and places to sit.  My room was ready when I got to the Westin, so I showered and headed back out to pick up some drinks and do a little shopping, then meet up with our group for lunch.

As I stepped out of the hotel, the carillon was playing across the street, so I stopped to watch.  A few blocks away, I encountered something I never expected to see in Spain - a Steak 'n Shake restaurant!  I couldn't believe my eyes.  (For readers who aren't from central Illinois, the Steak 'n Shake chain began in Normal, IL, where I am from.)

Puerta del Sol had its usual contingent of street weirdos - costumed characters (including, oddly, Mr Bean), guys posing in ways that made you wonder what held them up, singers, tables with scary heads on them that came to life as you passed - you know, the usual.  :)  Plaza Mayor had its share, too.

We ended up with six of us for lunch.  We walked down to the Mercado de San Miguel, but found it way too packed with people, and we all wanted to sit, so we ended up at a little restaurant called Bar Eduardo, right next door, where we could eat outside.  Mike and I split a beef, onion, and carrot pizza.  Afterward, we split up to do different things.  Mike, Betsy, and I returned to the mercado to buy dessert.  I bought something whose name I can't recall right now that looked like a calzone, only it was filled with pudding-like cream and dusted with powdered sugar - yum! Then we set off to walk off the calories.

We were headed to the Templo de Debod, but we had switched trains when we didn't need to, and ended up somewhere else entirely.  It was a fortuitous mistake, though, because the train back had performers on it. We went back to where we had made the mistake and walked from there.  Templo de Debod is a 2200 year old Egyptian temple that was given to the city in 1968 in gratitude for Spain's help in saving the temples of Abu SimbeI, in Nubia, when they were building the Aswan Dam (they were going to be flooded, like at Three Rivers Gorge, and the temples were moved, block by block, to higher ground).  I can imagine them saying, "Hey, thanks for helping out, Spain. Here, you can have this little one." It is in a beautiful little park which offers a great view of the Royal Palace and the cathedral.  But the walk, paired with the stairs to get up to the Temple, just about did me in.  Pretty sure those pastry calories are long gone! By this time it was nearly 5:00 and we were all done for the day.  We had thought about dinner plans but just decided to grab a sandwich somewhere, separately.  Mike and Betsy headed back to their hotel and I returned to Sol, then walked to the Westin.



My legs are tired, and my feet hurt, but no knee pain!  I lost track of how many layers we went up and down in the metro system to get to each train.  At this point, except for maybe 4 hours of "sleep" on the plane, I have been up just over 30 hours, so I think I will head around the corner for a sandwich, then come back and crash for the night.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

It Begins

I didn't get exactly the best of starts this morning, though I really wasn't rushing.  Just as I got to the airport in Bloomington, I realized that I had forgotten my razor handle - I had blades but no handle.  Since home was five minutes away (and I had also forgotten to brush my teeth), I went back for it.
I guess I should also confess that I mistakenly used the men's room (thankfully unoccupied) at my gate.  I realized this only when I had to go back in several minutes later to retrieve the water bottle I had left behind, and I saw the urinals.  I kept repeating my travel mantra "phone, passport, wallet, sweater, phone, passport, wallet, sweater" in hopes that it would be an end to my problem with leaving things behind.

On the flight to Atlanta, I noticed a girl, one row up and across the aisle, who was watching a just-barely-in-theatres movie on her netbook.  I was wondering how she happened to have that movie already when I noticed the Chinese subtitles.  It took me right back to the little card-table store that appeared nightly in the alley across from our hotel in Shanghai (and from whom we probably bought 60 DVDs at 88 cents each).  I remember buying one of the Harry Potter movies - one which had just been released in theatres a few days prior.  Probably not strictly legal copies, but they were fun to watch.  You never knew what you would find - the silhouette of somebody's head in the way, part of the picture missing at the top to make room for unremovable Spanish or Chinese subtitles, or a skip that caused you to miss the last five minutes of the movie.  I wanted to catch her eye as we got off the plane and ask her about it, but I didn't have a chance.

For anyone traveling through Terminal F in Atlanta, eat before you get here.  Not many food choices, though I can recommend the applewood bacon and turkey panini at The Pecan Bistro.  Oh, and don't buy pop from a vending machine before lunch or they will try to charge you for it when they see it in your hand.

Now at the gate, waiting for the second leg, I popped open my Blogger app to add to today's entry.  Imagine my surprise when I found my latest loss, everything I had typed in Bloomington.  I think I need to get on the plane, get some sleep, and start again in Madrid!

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Heading Out....Almost

Hey, nothing like waiting till the last minute to set up a blog for this trip!
I still have a few things on my to-do list, but it is growing shorter all the time.  Good thing, since I leave from Bloomington at 11:00 tomorrow morning.  It has been a long (but lucrative) tax season, and I am more than ready to be out of here for awhile.  My little break in NYC in late February was great, but I need some Spain.

First, I will spend a couple of days in Madrid, then head off to my third Vaughantown experience, this time in a town called Belmonte.  At the end of the week, I will take the train to Leon, where Jorge will meet me for an additional week in northern Spain. We will be basing in Mieres and taking day trips from there.  It will be nice, for a change, to not move around every day.  I will be staying at the Hotel Mieres del Camino.  Then I will take the train back to Madrid and spend the last night near the airport.

I have a four-hour layover in Atlanta tomorrow, then we will leave for Madrid at 5:44 pm, arriving at approximately 8:15 am on Friday.  A guy from my first Vaughantown will be on my flight, and we have assembled a group for lunch and some sightseeing Friday afternoon.
The second week is mostly a mystery, at this point.  Jorge has been making plans for that.  I know that my last full day will be in Valladolid, where I will get the train back to Madrid.  I know of a few options that he was considering, but there is at least one "surprise", too.  I'm pretty much open to anything.

Hoping to get my remaining chores done this afternoon so there won't be any rushing around tomorrow morning, but you know how that tends to go.  :)
I will be carrying my regular phone this time, planning to use mostly wifi, WhatsApp for texting, and a tiny bit of data when necessary.  Planning to use Uber in Madrid instead of taxis, too.
Let's go!