Observations #1 – Architecture in Madrid

 

I alluded to it earlier and now I want to show some of the architecture we’ve come across here in Madrid so far. I will post other pictures to give you a feel for what is here.

October 7th – Our first visit to El Rastro

 

Today was our first visit to El Rastro, one of the oldest flea markets in Europe. It’s quite the place blocks and blocks long with several side streets containing vendors as well and wall to wall people. It teems with pickpockets so we took several precautions like money belts and only carrying a small amount of cash in pocket and no credit cards. My guess is that most of the trouble takes place during high tourist season when there are so many tourists, but I’m betting that a few people went home lighter in the wallet. I bought a belt that was touted as hand made by a leatherworker, but at such a cheap price we’ll see if it lasts and maybe it was a Chinese leatherworker. We found a small shop specializing in antique ironwork that ended up as our favorite shop, not cheap but such beautiful stuff. Not for taking home however.

 

 

 

 

It’s been in the 80’s virtually every day pretty hot but if you stay in the shade not unbearable. We came prepared for winter and have found summer taking a pretty strong stand. What’s interesting is that so many people are wearing sweaters and coats, my guess is that it gets so steamy in the summer that when it drops to the 80’s many people are chilled, like Miami? As long as the weather persists like this we’re going to concentrate on our walking tours of the city and when it changes then we’ll start on the museums.

October 6th – Decisions decisions

 

Deb wants to do laundry today and I feel the need to nail down some of our travel details. So Deb will stay here in the apartment and try out our washer; meanwhile I will go downtown. I want to see if I can find a transformer and also get airline tickets to the U.K. for December.

While Deb was doing laundry somehow she got something caught outside the door as well as being inside and had a few minutes of panic while she tried to figure out how to stop the wash cycle and get the offender on one side or the other. Mission accomplished and the laundry is now done.

My sojourn was clearly more fun and I used the subway for my first visit downtown. A gentleman clerk at El Corte Ingles (dept store) gave us the name and address of an electronics store where there are likely to be transformers and they did have one. However it’s doubling as a boat anchor and I just don’t want to have to carry it back, so now that’s a task off the list. I walked from the electronics store down to a Starbucks to use their internet and on the way took a path through the Retiro park. As I walked through I heard what sounded like medieval music so I followed it and found a dance exhibition of Basque folkdances. I saw the last two dances and really enjoyed the few minutes that I was able to spend. I booked ticket to the U.K. for approximately half of what I was expecting so that made me pretty happy. But it comes with a cost as well, we have to make a 7:45am flight from the airport on the 29^th of December.

October 5^th – Doh, again!

You may remember from my Thunderstruck entry that after finding out that we could only stay 90 days I did a hurried repack to remove some things from my luggage to lighten it up. Well it seems that I also took out my brown belt when I was removing things and I left it at home instead of repacking it. Now I have to go out and get a brown belt as I have only a black one and my hiking boots for bad weather and my second pair of city shoes are brown. Ha Ha Ha! So when we go to the department store, El Corte Ingles I’ll be looking for a belt too. I want to see if I can get a 110v transformer since I fried the other one and also we want to look at booking travel back to the U.K. for our return in January if our attempt to get a longer term visa fails.

Update: We went to the US embassy today and talked with a consular employee and his basic message was that they had many queries about the same question but they had never received any information as to whether anyone was able to get an extension. However another employee said that it didn’t make much sense because one would think that with all the financial trouble over here they Spanish govt. would be open to tourists spending longer periods and more money here, but the bureaucracy didn’t seem to care. We took that to mean that there was almost no chance for us. So at this point were resigned to returning to the U.S. in January. We stopped at a travel agency to see about tickets to London and it turns out that it will be least expensive to fly to London with a roundtrip ticket but only use one side of it. That figures!

October 4^th – Today we took the bus downtown after another trip to our market for more substantial supplies. Drat the organic floor is still roped off, but no matter we bought nice makings for salad, a loaf of bread, and made another stop at our cheese vendor. This lovely young lady has become our cheese vendor and she is very knowledgeable on Spanish cheeses. Our first view of her was not encouraging as she appeared to be scowling, but maybe it was just boredom because when we finally approached her the first time it was as if a switch has been activated and she turned out to be very personable. So we will be buying from her a lot I think, as she pretty much sells only cheese and we want to have her as a source while we’re here. Our apartment is very close to the Bull fight ring in Madrid and architecturally speaking is very beautiful. I’m afraid I can’t subscribe to the ‘art’ of bull fighting as I’m not much on the spectacle of torturing a bull to goad it into fighting, very provincial of me but there it is and I have a choice. Anyway we got to the main area and decided to walk about some; we needed to get SIM cards for our phones so that we would have a local numbers. However we are rethinking it as the cards are only good for one country and the Padilla’s (Julia and Jose) live in France so calling them is perhaps not a great option, at least from a cell phone. We will investigate further.   The architecture of Madrid is pretty spectacular on the whole, very much like Paris but much more florid. Also it ranges from mid 1800’s to what appears to be the 1940’s in the ‘old’ central area. Franco’s stamp is on a lot of the ministry buildings but they are still impressive. We came across our first demonstration against the government today but it was small and peaceful, but pretty loud. We’ve seen television where they have been much larger and very confrontational with heads getting cracked, luckily we have missed those. We’re falling in to Madrid time pretty quickly with late lunches and dinners, tonight we finished a great homemade dinner , by Deb of course, around 10:30 pm. Then to bed around mid-night which for us is late enough. Things are very ‘cozy’ in this apartment it’s about 650 square feet, not crowded at all but definitely a two person setup. We have a galley kitchen, a toilet, a shower, a bedroom, a small living room and a small dining area. If you decide to come to visit us be sure to let us know ahead so that we can figure out logistics. We can shift things around on the floor and make some space but as I said it’s cozy, at least by our US standards.

October 3^rd – Flying without Instructors

Today was our first day without Jose & Julia and we got to see how profoundly we are deficient in our Spanish language skills.  I went out early to buy bread from the bakery that is just a short distance away which turned out to be a pretty simple task.   I can ask for things assuming that I can see their names, so that works out fine.  Last night however I managed to fry the electrical converter that we brought over so I figured I’d go try to find one, that and baking soda.   My first stop was at the little supermarket close to the bakery.   I walked in and immediately got the clerk a bit exercised because I entered through one of the checkout aisles, she made me come out and go through the entry aisle, my bad.  I looked at every aisle but there was no baking soda to be had so I decided to leave and wouldn’t you know it when I tried to go out through an exit aisle she nabbed me again and made me leave through the entry aisle since I wasn’t buying anything.  Now I avoid her at all costs.   Anyway next I tried a pharmacy even though I didn’t think it would have any, the pharmacist was very nice but I couldn’t even begin to explain baking soda and ‘arm and hammer’ didn’t elicit any response either so I thanked him and left.  I did get a little further with the gentleman at the electrical supply shop, he was able to show me a pretty basic transformer that would step the voltage down from 240 to 110 and I very well may buy that if all else fails but not just yet.  Still it was more pantomime than meaningful conversation.   Anyway Deb and I got out and found a really extensive food market just a few blocks away which supposedly has any entire floor devoted to organic foods.   We got there and found that the stairs and escalator to the organic floor were blocked off and frankly given my interaction with the lady in the supermarket I wasn’t inclined to cross the barrier.  No matter the market is really extensive in the way of fruit, veg, meat and fish so for now we’re happy campers.  We bought some basics and will try it again tomorrow to see just when the organic floor is open.   This evening we went to our new little bar, which is more like a pub, for tapas and a beer.   We are really taken with this little bar as it has good food and drink at very inexpensive prices.    With our first beer we got patatas brava which are roasted and then covered in a nice spicy pepperish sauce, mmm mmm good.   Next beer and it was a plate of Spanish ham cut in generous slices.   I knocked over my beer glass by accident and thus had to order another beer, but no matter, this time we ordered a “racione” of deep fried calamari which came out in a heaping stack over about a 9 inch plate.  That pretty much ended our night for eating, and drinking, so we took a small paseo of the neighborhood and ended our evening around 10:00 back at the apartment.

 

October 1^st-2^nd Off we go into the Wild Blue Yonder - Not so fast there buddy

Today is our first travel day and it started out quietly enough , but soon got INTERESTING. Our plane was waiting at the gate when we arrived and we boarded right on time. They pushed back from the gate and as we sat on the tarmac away from the gate our pilot came on and mentioned that one of our ‘check engine’ lights was on, now as I’ve always said, “I’d rather be on ground impatient to be in the air than in the air and praying to get on the ground”. So after a couple minutes she came back on and said we would be pulling back to the gate. Once at the gate we were told that they would do an engine run-up and evaluate its condition, so off of the plane we go and start the process of trying to get timely information to make SNAP DECISIONS. 30 minutes pass, no definite word, so I saunter over to the customer service counter to see if there is another plane going our way that will get us to Dulles in time to make our connection. No Joy, the next flight available would get us there too late to make the connection. Plus in order to get on the standby list for that flight we would need cancel our seats on the current flight and separate our reservations leading to other potential complications, like one of us getting on as a standby and the other not. Our best option was to wait for a definitive statement, which came a little later (now an hour later) and it was duly reported that our plane was not fit to fly and they would TRY to find another plane. So we were SOL, so now I ran back to customer service to find out if they could route us through Frankfurt with a connection to Madrid arriving 7 or so hours later. Amazingly as I was waiting for a service rep. they announced that wonder of wonders they had another plane available. So after all we took off 2 hours late and arrived in Dulles with a little over an hours to our connecting flight to Madrid. The flight to Madrid even more amazingly arrived an hour early . HooRah!

October 2^nd –First day in Madrid

It was full on night when we arrived at 6:30 am Madrid time and the sun was only coming up as we left the Airport at 8 am. They are still on daylight savings time here I think. Anyway our hosts, Julia and Jose met us at the airport and we took a taxi back to the apartment. Julia and Jose did a house exchange with us once before about 5 yrs ago when they came to visit their son in Denver so we are familiar with them already and that makes the transition so much easier. They showed us their apartment and then left us to unpack and get a couple hours rest. Deb got a couple hours nap and I took my usual walk in the neighborhood to get my body clock reset. Around 1:30 we joined Julia and Jose for a lunch at their favorite little bar/bistro just up the block from their apartment. This is going to be great, because the food in our new local hangout is very good and not expensive. A full 2-3 course lunch with wine and beer was 45 Euros for 4 people. I had my first Fabada which is a bean soup larded with non-smoked bacon and chorizo, umm umm good, followed by a plate of fried chicken wings and frys. Deb had a salad compose of Tuna and boiled eggs covered with a house made tomato sauce followed by a leg/thigh of herb roast chicken which was equally good. Julia and Jose had similar selections to ours. Lunch also included a small Cervesa and a bottle of very creditable red wine, as I said all for around 45 euros. After lunch they took us on a short walking tour of our neighborhood showing us the super market and bakery as well as a market where we can get organic food when we desire. They were both emphatic regarding pickpockets here in Madrid, both of them have been targeted within the last year, which reinforces what we read in Rick Steves book on Madrid so we will take extra precautions. Only one day’s cash in a wallet, with extra cash and credit cards in a money belt. We’re very happy to be here and look forward to our visit. We watched Spanish television last evening to start tuning our ear to the language. I got to watch a little footie, Barcelona vs. Benfica, Barca was ahead 2 to nil when I shut it off at 10 pm and went to bed. We will be limited in where we can update since we have no internet connection at the apartment, and while we want to share with our friends we’re not going to make staying connected our top priority. So be patient and we’ll keep you up to date.