Week two!

Of my big long Spain trip. That occurred almost a year ago. Ahem.

Day 8 was a Sunday. I had managed to purchase a full metro pass (abordo de transportes) but was still feeling my way around the Metro in Madrid. The bus to Madrid was old hat by then. What hadn’t registered was that one of the Metro lines that I planned to use was down for construction – part of the big “get Madrid ready for the Olympics that they had really hoped to host but didn’t get” gig. All of Madrid seemed to be under construction because they were one of the finalists for the 2012 Olympics. Instead of waiting for final word, they were already deep in prep mode when word came that they hadn’t gotten them. So there was scaffolding, there were closed lanes, there were streets cut off, and, pertinent to the story of day 8, there were closed Metro lines. Which resulted in me being pretty much lost for much of the day because I didn’t get off where I thought I needed to, and then when I went to look for “El Rastro” (big, famous flea market like thing held every Sunday) I walked in the wrong direction. Apparently. Not a big deal as I was pretty used to wandering around half-lost much of the time and seeing whatever was where I was. I ran across El Templo de Debod – 30 minutes after it closed. I did get to a restaurant that I picked out of my Lonely Planet city guide before it closed, barely.

Based on my host mom’s earlier announcement that we were going to a discoteca that evening, I left Madrid earlyish since I hadn’t actually caught any info about what time we were going. For reasons that I’m not 100% sure of, but which I think include the host mom’s friends not being able to come, we didn’t hit the dicotecas at all. We did, however, go to a bar in Las Rozas. It was very quiet as far as bars go, and the whole smoking indoors thing was somewhat annoying (spoiled California girl that I am). My host mom spoke/flirted with 2 men in the bar primarily. I understood, well, some of the conversation. Enough to pick up some talk of politics, and a discussion on my host mom’s marital state (separated for years, not divorced). Going home D, my host mom, asked if I thought the men were cute, or if I liked them. That disconcerted me a bit. Mainly because the men were easily at least 15 years older than I am. Secondarily because I hadn’t really expected my host mom to be all girlfriend-y with me. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except she seemed to want to relate to me in a way that I don’t relate to my own friends. When we were in Navacerrados (during week 1) we sat in a bar/restaurant and held a conversation (of the ‘her talking, me listening and maybe getting in halting one word answers every once in a while’ type) about how cute the server was with the proprietress – who was the server’s mother. While the server could hear. Said conversation included a discussion of how women look for two things in a man – a big wallet and a big “package” (and I do believe the word paquete was used). This type of conversation would have made me uncomfortable in English. When the subject of the conversation was out of earshot. And the mother of the subject wasn’t there. Point being, I’m not the ‘picking up on men in bars’ type and my host mom was. But whatever. It was sort of a lame night out as far as that goes. I don’t pick up strange men in bars, but I do love to dance and Madrid is known for its night life. I never did get to go to a discoteca.

Day 9 was sleeping in, wandering around Las Rozas on foot, and shopping with D and discovering that she is the type of demanding, sort of strident shopper that makes me very uncomfortable. As in got into an argument with a clerk because they had something on display that they didn’t actually have in stock. And filled out the paperwork for an official complaint about it (there is a system that is either Madrid-wide or possibly nation-wide where official complaints get filed with some organization that monitors stores or something like that).

Day 10 was a long day in Madrid because language instruction was officially cancelled for a few days. I made it to El Parque del Buen Retiro which really was lovely. Saw a building or two there (loved the Crystal Palace and my immediate though – for no discernable reason – was that it would be a great place for a wedding reception because it was so pretty and open). My next plan was to follow a 6 km walk as described in the Lonely Planet guide (best purchase I made!). The first thing I did was run into 2 women who asked me for directions. In English. After more than a week getting by on my limited Spanish, and hearing nothing but Spanish, and feeling sort of lost (both physically and linguistically), having even a 2 minute conversation with strangers from Toronto was bliss. I felt an odd sense of relief. It was so effortless to talk and listen and understand. I was practically giddy.

I followed the walk which went from older more traditional area to a more “modern” section of town. It started by the big museums, passed some of the more famous fountains, and through an outdoor abstract art exhibit and some relatively boring businessy areas of the city. It was in the boring, non-tourist, business area where I ran into a former co-worker. Stuff like that is so random. Half-way around the world in a place where you don’t expect to see anyone you know, and there you are, 5 feet from someone you know. More English conversation! Except Mary was there on business with a current co-worker of her so it was about 30 seconds of conversation. I also stopped in the National Library along the walk and managed to ask for and receive directions, in Spanish, to the Cervantes and Don Quijote exhibit. It was the 400th anniversary of the book being published and they had tons of manuscripts and paintings and illustrations and tapestries and that was an enjoyable hour or two. About which my high school Spanish teacher would be thrilled if she knew of it.

Day 11 – I started the day with shopping for groceries and household stuff at the store down the street. Then I headed into Madrid and the Centro de Arte Reina Sophia on the suggestion of the two Toronto women from the day before. I don’t normally think of myself as a modern/contemporary art type of person, but I really *really* enjoyed the whole Juan Gris exhibit. I saw Guernica which was somehow smaller than I expected, and discovered that I wasn’t actually wrong about not particularly caring for Picasso, although it was interesting. The fourth floor had a bunch of installations - as in contemporary art pieces that take up the whole room and involve flashing lights or melting wax figures or whatnot. That is also something I’d consider “interesting, up to a point, but not particularly my thing.” So I felt rather cultured about the whole day and went back to Las Rozas where B didn’t show up for English lessons. Again.

Day 12 was spent near the Palacio Real (which I decided probably wasn’t worth whatever price they were charging for admission, but which was huge and pretty from the outside). I did get to the one foreign language used book store that the LP guide mentioned and it was great. I traded in the books I had brought with me and picked up some new ones. I also managed to find a really good Greek restaurant for lunch. They saw through my pathetic attempts at Spanish right away, but it was easily the best restaurant food I had up to that point. We did manage about a half hour of forced English lessons that day.

Day 13 was a sort of nothing day – slept late, hit the ATM, followed the son (B) around hoping he’d want to do something English related until he was forced to sit and spend maybe 10 minutes doing workbook pages.

Day 14 was more of the same. I had planned to go off on my own, but D had planned to go to Madrid with B and I seemed to be expected to come along. So I did. We didn’t do much – just drove to Madrid so D could do some errands and then back to Las Rozas. While we drove around I learned that while the previous government was okay the current one is terrible, horrible and no good (according to D). After B went to his dad’s for the evening/day, D showed me some family photographs of trips she’d taken and stuff like that. But a very mellow day overall.