Madrid

Written by: Kerry outlined it and Amy wrote it in Nerja while watching a thunderstorm come over the Mediterranean Sea.

It was late when we arrived in Madrid and the girls were very tired.  But, we traveled 624 km (around 388 miles) in comfy train seat complete with table at speeds of over 300 km/h.  That completely rocked.  The most enjoyable complementary movie was Brave.  Colleen, who has never taken any other language classes, even watched it in Spanish and said she understood it. The girl in her 3rd year of Spanish in school--Abby--watched it in English (I just threw Abby under the bus).  

After arriving in Madrid on that midnight train from Barcelona, we took a cab to our hotel--The Petit Palace Posada del Peine.  This boutique hotel is right in the middle of a pedestrian-only zone.  But, our helpful cab driver dropped us off as close as he could go.  As there was a police car right behind him, I was very grateful for his willingness to bend the rules at his own personal risk. 

We checked into the hotel, went up to our room and marveled at the bunk beds.  Colleen, who NEVER gets the top bunk due to her restless sleeping habits--called the top bunk.  And, since the bed had all the fall prevention that you could ask for, she finally got to fulfill a life-long dream and sleep on the top bunk.  She fell only once while trying to climb the ladder, but otherwise really enjoyed the privilege.  

While the central location of the hotel was something Ker and I originally liked, we found out quickly that Madrid is a loud, late night sort of place.  There were times I thought the all night party was going on right under our 3rd floor window.  After I got over the fact that I would not be getting much uninterrupted sleep, I kind of enjoyed being part of the party.  I'm not much of a bar hopping, all night, drunken party girl anymore (not that I was much of one to begin with) but hearing all the twenty-somethings occasionally through the night enjoying themselves at all hours made me relive a part of it.  The master bed wasn't that great and the outlet next to my side of the bed popped, so listening to the all hours party was charming when it wasn't annoying.

The next morning, we got up and walked the Rick Steve's self-guided walking tour.  But first, we had to breakfast because the hotel did not include it and was happy to charge 13 euro per person to provide it.  I think we can do better than that, don't you?  So, we headed outside and right in front of the hotel door was a cute little cafe that had breakfast for under half of what the hotel wanted.  The food wasn't amazing, but it was filling and done quickly.

On our tour, we found that the capitol of Spain is HUGE!  We only saw a small portion of it while we were there, but seeing its size from the many vistas really alerted us to its enormity.  We walked around and saw:

- Plaza de Puerta del Sol

- Plaza Mayor

- Plaza de la Villa

- Iglesia de San Andres

- Ignlesia de San Francisco Grande (no entra!)

- Plaza de Oriente (statues of Visigoth kings)

- Catedral & walked past palace

We intended to continue to Plaza Espanya, but all were tired so went for lunch at the Mercat de San Miguel.  The girls and I bought fruit & pies and went back to hotel.  Kerry stayed and sampled one of everything, including a small bucket of aged parma ham, various croquettes & crostini, and a calamari sandwich.  That place was packed and I was just tired of having to throw an elbow to get the three of us through the crowd.

After a very long nap and some laundry doings, we went the Temple of Debod.  This 2nd century BC Egytpian temple dedicated to the goddess Isis was originally erected along the Nile river. It was gifted to Spain in 1968 and reassembled in Spain.  This attraction is free and we hit it 30 min before closing time so it wasn't super crowded.  I told Ker that we need one of these in our imagined back yard.  

We had walked miles and miles at this point and decided to have dinner and head back to the hotel to see how Mamo and Poppop were faring.  That's when I found out how poor the wifi at the hotel really was.  But, I was able to briefly hear his voice and hear how things were going with Mother. I had to be content with that small contact for the moment because the connection was so bad. 

I was restlessly dozing when around 6:00 am, I get a text from Tina to call her immediately.  As fast as I can, I whip the phone off the charger, rouse Kerry, and call Tina.  She had good news to report--Morgan was accepted at Jesuit!  You go Mo!

Since we were up, Ker and I decided to let the girls have McDonalds for breakfast.  We gave them some money and let them go alone to the golden arches.  They were very excited to taste how McMuffins taste here in Spain. Abby tried to use the kiosk, but since she had cash, she had to actually interact with a human.  Ker and I met them on the calle.  The intention was that Ker and I would find a Starbucks to have our breakfast since all we really wanted was coffee and the girls would eat their "food" there. But, I couldn't remember where the nearest Starbucks was.  After a frustrating 15 minute wander, Ker and I decided to take the easy way, send the girls back to the hotel room and have our breakfast at the same cafe outside the hotel where I had to use my pigeon Spanish to order my eggs over hard which is harder to explain in Spanish than you might think because you can't just say "I'd like a dead egg" here.

Once the meal was over, we headed off to see some Dali at the Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.  Keep in mind that over the last year, we have been in museums in New York, Washington DC, Ireland, Paris, London, Wales, Bristol and here.  It just might be that we have achieved maximum museum capacity.  But, this was the only place we would have the opportunity to view some Dali and we just couldn't pass it up.  To soften the yet-another-museum blow for the kids, I stopped off at a Dunkin Coffee (known as Dunkin Donuts in the states) and let them have a donut.  Abby chose a donut that was made to look like Cookie Monster.  Thus fortified, we headed into the museum.  That place is huge and we only saw a small portion of it.  

Picasso's Guernica is housed here. This black and white painting was Picasso's protest of the horror of the Spanish Civil War. Specifically, this painting shines a light on the civilian casualties from the saturation bombings at Guernica. The painting is massive and very powerful. I'm not the world's best art critic since I usually come away from art scratching my head, but this painting shouts at you. While I do not understand any of its intricacies, I was moved by the sheer outrage coming off that canvas. Picasso was a genius and in another room of the museum, there are surrealistic metal sculptures. I could spot his a mile away—his skill just draws you to his work.

But, I was there to see the only surrealistic artist that made any sense to me—Salvador Dali. Now, Dali has his very own museum 2.5 hours north of Barcelona which I just didn't have time to go see this trip. But, some of his work is housed in the Reina Sofia. Five of his works are here—Endless Enigma, The Invisible Man, The Great Masturbator, The Andulusian Dog, The Enigma of Hitler. I spent a lot of time looking at these works. Dali was a believer in Freud's state of being so his work focused on creating a dreamlike state for the viewer. He wasn't looking to create nightmares like some of his surrealistic contemporaries—instead he wanted his viewers to be moved to an alternate state of being. Objective achieved. The paintings on display definitely moved me to look at the message of his work in a completely different way. I'm glad we were able to see these.

Once we saw the Dali's we bailed. Great works or not, one more museum or painting and we might go completely out of our minds. Instead, we headed off to the largest park Madrid had to offer—Casa de Campo. We had lunch overlooking the fountain inside a pond. Our companions were little green tropical birds that I think might be parakeets. After lunch we walked past the Arc de Triomph (it seems that every capitol has one except ours). We were on our way to the Royal Palace which claimed to have free admission 2 hours before it closed. After waiting in the giant queue, we found out that the free admission only applied to EU members. Which I am, but Ker and the girls were not. So, we said bag that and went back to the hotel. We had dinner and followed it up with dessert and went to bed because the next day was a side trip to Toledo.