If This Is Thursday, This Must Be Madrid

We are in Madrid, and I am typing on a Spanish language keyboard. It is killing me! I met Grace at Passport Control early this morning, and the rest of the day has been a blur. We took a taxi to the hotel because we had missed our driver (it took too long for us to get through baggage claim because the flight Grace was on was about a half hour late).

After checking in, we took a walk up to Plaza Mayor, then on to the Royal Palace and the Cathedral. I find I am not taking a lot of pictures that I took two years ago. You can either be happy or sad about that :-) We ended back at the Plaza Mayor for lunch, and had a large tomato olive salad and a Spanish pizza with lots of ham. I still intend to make it to the Ham Museum. We walked right past it.

We came back to the hotel to recharge a bit, then headed off for a two and a half hour walk through of the Prado Art Museum. I have never seen so many crucifixion scenes in one place. We are talking about hundreds. Lots of little angels too, and one particularly baffling picture where a baby is dancing on about eight other baby heads. Reminds me of Galaxy Quest.

By this time it occurred to both of us that we smelled bad, and we were like the walking dead. We could hardly drag ourselves anywhere. We crawled back to the hotel, then took showers, and decided to go for an early evening walk. I headed straight for Starbucks, and we had some great ice drinks, and a wonderful conversation with an exchange student from Tennessee. We then walked up into the Chueca neighborhood where Ron, Brian, and I stayed two years ago. I really am suffering from recovered memories as we walk the streets of Madrid.

Stay tuned. We are planning on more great adventures, maybe an out of town experience.