I call this my ‘cranky’ day! We travelled to Madrid via car, bus, high speed train and taxi. But it took all day, and it was very hot. I am very tired of being hot and sweaty – I am envious when I see the lows in Winnipeg. I can’t remember ever being this hot for this long. Even on the high speed train, the a/c went off for awhile and the HEAT kicked in!!! We are such wimps! We did see some unusual and interesting sights along the way. At one point, on the bus we saw about 1000 wind turbines. On the horizon, when you could only see the tops spinning, it looked like big white creatures turning cartwheels. Then further on, during the day, there were100’s of solar panels, with an energy plant collecting the heat. At its top speed the train was going 250 km per hour! It didn’t FEEL that fast.
We arrived in Madrid at 9 pm. Here’s the rub! As you know we’ve been using trip advisor’ to book our hotels as we travel. We were very happy with the Holiday Inn Express in Algeciras, so decided to use it again in Madrid. It was close to both the train and airport. We looked at the description of distances again, just before disembarking and said, ‘hey, we’ve been sitting all day, let’s just walk the 1.5 km.’ We tried to find someone who could give us directions – but that fell through, so we jumped into a taxi. Well, these two seniors had not noticed that it was 15 km, not 1.5 km!!!! So, there we are WAY out in the boonies! But, close to the airport – 3 km; we got that part right! What to do? Our eye sight may be going, but we were able to walk 2 km to the bus stop, take the bus to the metro, and go straight down town. We headed down the first escalator on the metro and asked a woman for directions. She was on her way to work and gave us one of her tickets and rode with us and made sure we were going in the right direction. We did some sightseeing, shopping, and had lunch. Then, most amazing of all, we found our way back ‘home’, again with help from a woman on the bus, who made sure we got off at our stop!!!
There were a lot of buskers in the main plaza in downtown Madrid – spider man, Elvis, the headless woman, the sand castle person – all ‘enjoying’ the heat!. As we were eating lunch, Bruce looked over and saw an old man, with a beer belly, saggy boobs, a white T-shirt, cigarette, beer and a white painted face. We wondered what was wrong with him. Did he have a disease or something? His ‘busking gig’ was to sit in a contraption that looked like a baby carriage, with a baby bonnet, and plastic hands that he could control. He made baby sounds, blew kisses at the crowd and generally made a food of himself for some good coin! What a laugh! (I had pictures, but somehow I did something wrong and lost all my pics from today, him included; but he will live in our memories!) Mark, if things don’t pan out iin January, let’s put this together at The Forks. Do you want to be the baby? I’ll take the money to the bank.
The flight out of Madrid was unexceptional except for two things. OK, it’s 3 km from the airport when you’re arriving, but 9 when you’re leaving, so there is STILL a big taxi bill! We met a nice young couple from London, ON. He asked, “Are you from Canada?” How did he know? My Lulu lemon pants! Now there’s a man!
This is my last blog. Only two more sleeps (God willing) and we’ll be sleeping in our own beds. A few final observations: All the hotels here have a tube in the shower that says ‘shampoo and shower gel.’ Are we missing something? Why are we buying two products? I’ve been using it as shampoo and it works great. The numbering of floors is interesting. There is -1, -2, 0, G, 1, 2, etc. I’ve walked extra flights of stairs a few times, trying to get to the right place. The bathrooms in Spain are challenging – remember to remove everything you don’t want dampened, because the water DOES NOT stay in the shower area! Also, after 21 days we’re almost getting used to the smell of cigarette smoke again, in public places.
We were trying to remember all the countries we’ve been blessed and privileged to visit in the last 20+ years – 30!!! And we dreamt a little about future trips – China? Ukraine? Vietnam? Brazil?
See you soon! Hasta pronto!
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