A Good Day

We made it to Madrid today.  The flights all went well.  We had plenty of time so, of course, there were no problems along the way despite the fact that all the flights were totally full.  Many thanks to our neighbor, Pete Landry, for the lift to the airport.   

After we arrived at the airport in Madrid and easily found the bus to the Atocha train station, very near our hotel.  Having had little sleep, we did not focus well when we got to the train station.  We could not locate the information or tourist office in the station and ended up taking a taxi for 8 euro's for what could have been a 8 minute walk to our hotel.  So be it.  At the hotel we wanted just to leave our bags (it was about 10 AM local time) but the desk clerk just checked us in early.  We must have looked like a couple tired old "turistos" astray in the big city. 

Then the fun started.  I discovered that I did not have my meter to check my blood sugar.   I remember taking it out of the case where I had packed it just before we left and must not have put it back in.  I had everything else except the meter itself. 

A quick trip to the pharmacy and a good chance to practice Spanish resulted in an estimated price of 89 euros for a new one and much more for test strips for it.  I declined. 

In the early afternoon, we took a bus tour around central Madrid.  Man, are they proud of their architects!   There are some very interesting buildings but after the first twenty or so, interest wanes with no sleep and increasingly cold temperatures.
 
But a long siesta improved our outlook considerably.  After sleeping, we went walking from the hotel looking for a tapas bar.  On the way we stopped at another farmacia .  The farmista spoke "un poco Ingles" and we with our meager Spanish managed to reach a good  solution to my meter problem. 

We asked her about any local restaurants.  She suggested a couple, one of which was a few doors down the street from her shop.  We went to check it out.  They had no menu, spoke no English but said they could do "pescado o carne con ensalada mixta."  They obviously were primarily a tapas bar, a little neighbor hood family place where the locals stopped in for a drink and a tapa.   People were laughing and having fun.

We chose the fish.  They put out a pretty tablecloth for us.  We ordered a "cerveza de barillo" and the young lady asked us if we wanted chilled glasses.  We, of course, said yes. 

 El Parque Restaurant

 

 

While waiting for the dinner we were served tapas of ham and bread sticks (kind of).  The ham was very good.  The dinner came, a simple mixed salad with a olive oil and vinegar dressing which was the best that I have ever had.  Somebody told us that the olive oil here was the best in th world and now I believe it.  Every thing in the salad was fresh and flavorful.  Even the head lettuce actually tasted good and the tomato tasted like a tomato should. 

The simply breaded and fried fish was very tasty.  We finished with a small piece of flan covered with a honey and rum sauce.  Muy delicioso. 

As we were getting ready to leave, the bartender, the son of the older lady who seemed like the family head, invited us to the bar for an apertif on the house.  We accepted and he poured a cream chocolate liquour for Barbara and a coffee liquour for me.  His mother came behind the bar and took those away.  She poured a generous drink of the smoothest and most flovorful port I had ever had.  It was grand.
 
We communicated well, even though they spoke no English and our Spanish is marginal, at best.  We talked for a while, finsihed our drink, saluted, as they do in Costa Rica, "la pura vida" (the good life) and left feeling that we had made some friends, even if we never see them again.  And that is what, for us, this trip is all about.

It was a good day.

weh