June 1 to 3—Home, Museo Nacional Arqueologia (Old Stuff), and Casa de Campo

Dear Family and Friends,

June began with Martha hurting herself. Dani blames yoga. Wednesday as they were doing an hour of yoga on the hard apartment floor, something popped in Martha’s knee. By Thursday, after walking all day, something popped some more when Martha was taking off her shoes. So, Friday, we decided to stay at home, where Martha worked on her book some more (she’s up to almost 30,000 words on the second draft now after adding almost 5,000 words to the SE Asia part of the book and pasting the 5,000 words from the epilogue in Panama to the original rough draft of the manuscript). The only trip out of the apartment all day was for a late-night zapatilla … a bocadillo de lacon y queso … called in America, one HUGE, ooey gooey ham and cheese sandwich. We paid seven euro for it, and boy, was it worth every penny since we split it AND there was still some left for Saturday morning!

Saturday we slept in and Martha worked some more on the book before your friendly neighborhood wanderers headed out again, around 3:15 PM. Today, Martha was in charge of where we headed, and she chose Northeast. We headed out towards the Plaza de Cibiles and the Plaza de Independecia, with its grand archway.

To the North of these Madrid landmarks, we almost passed right by the Museo Nacional Arqueologia, the arqueological museum of Spain that is supposed to be fantastic, full of lots of old stuff. It was just a bit after 4 PM, so we decided to head in and take a quick look, since it’s another one of our options to get into for free with our annual pass. We did not spend as much time as we had been in the art museums reading the descriptions of the items and the history behind them, but instead opted to view the objects for what they were: simple clay pots, money from different cultures ruling Spain, jewels and jewelry, sculptures predating the Romans and representing them, mosaics, weaponry, religious icons, oil lamps with animal imagery, bone and marble impressions of Christ’s life, and pieces of buildings and other carefully created pieces of history. It was a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours, and we will definitely return as there are two more floors that we did not explore.

Back in the daylight, we continued on our path North, passing innumerable shops that we had no interest in (even if we weren’t trying to live on a budget)—Prada, Rolex, Cartier, H&M, and others with names that don’t even register in our world. Past the shops, we found the American Embassy, with its tall impenetrable walls that no one can see through and its Spanish tank and four soldiers in front. We took a left at the Embassy (always good to know where the Embassy is in a foreign town, by the way) and headed West.

Students and families lounged in the park outside of the engineer’s school. We took another left to head back South and find some Coca Cola Lights to sit and enjoy as the afternoon passed into evening. Back on the road after a short break, we passed through the Chueca district, considered stopping for something to eat, and kept going. By now, Martha’s knee was definitely bothering her, and we had slowed down considerably. On the Gran Via, we stopped at the Zahara Café for dinner of green salad, beers, hamburger for Martha, and cannelloni for Dani, costing less than 24 euro. Rejuvenated, we got back on the road, stopped again at the grocery store for a zucchini, caramel chocolate bars (for energy, of course), a tuna and bacon pizza, more coffee, and horchata (a milky drink popular in Hispanic cultures that Dani wanted to try—it’s supposed to be nutritious … which makes it pretty gross... we probably just have to get used to it). Martha enjoyed the ice pack on her knee as we watched “Something About Mary” in Spanish, ate little helado bars, and split one of the caramel bars from the freezer.

Saturday was a nice day, but Sunday was fantastic. June 3, Day 20, began with a trip to the local Catholic church for mass at noon. We followed the service somewhat, but then looked up the American passages from our local Episcopal church upon our return home so that we could enjoy the lessons for the day in better understanding. The church was magnificent in its gold adornments, with reproductions of famous paintings reflecting the life of Christ, and statues along the sides of the pews in memory of saints and the Madonna. Martha was especially taken with the reproduction of one of el Greco’s paintings on the side where we entered the church.

After exiting, we stopped at the panaderia to get some bread to make sandwiches for breakfast. Martha made chow while Dani took care of putting the most recent load of laundry up to dry. Soon, we were ready to head out for the day, first walking through el Rastro once again to enjoy the crowded river of people, take some photos since Martha had promised in last week’s blog that she would post more photos this week, and watched as cars started trying to maneuver through the people to be filled with the wares as they were packed up for the day.

Back in the Plaza Tirso de Molina, Martha and Dani were ready to head out to wherever, and started South down the hill, eventually arriving on Calle de Santa Maria de la Cabeza (still a mystery, folks). We stopped at the bus stop and considered our options. We chose to hop onto Autobus 55, which Martha figured would take us pretty far West of the city to what appeared to be an open area called Casa de Campo. As soon as we got to an area that looked “park-like” Martha jumped the gun and we ended up South of our destination.

No worries, though, as we stopped at the next bus stop area to look at the map (this part of town is not covered in the Lonely Planet) and figure out where we were in relation to the Casa de Campo bus stop that we had been trying to reach. Dani figured out North by the location of the afternoon sun, and we headed in that direction, walking past apartment complexes in this heavily residential area where all of the local shops were closed on this sunny Sunday. Through another small park, we saw a man climbing a wall with rock-climbing handles, a group of friends enjoying the gazebo and one couple dancing, and a family trying to get their kite out of a tree.

Finally, we saw the metro stop for Casa de Campo, and watched as folks came up on bicycles and by foot from the sandy, wooded hills headed down. We checked the map of the park and saw that there was a “teleferico,” a cable car system that looked to bring people from a peak in the center of the park back to land near the Templo de Debod in el Parque del Oeste. So we entered the park, hoping that our one small bottle of water from home would last us in the 30 degree Celsius warmth of the day.

Again, no worries, as we soon passed the Zoo/Aquarium, opting not to enter, but we did buy some water and a turkey bocadillo (there is not as much poultry eaten here as at home) to tide us over as we headed into the wilderness. Not that it was all that wilderness-y as we found this to be a very popular area for folks to wander, picnic, and enjoy time snuggling under the trees. This very family-oriented area did not just have a zoo and aquarium, however, as we could see the towering iron of the roller coaster at the amusement park as we climbed through the Serengeti-feeling trees up to … an open parking area that overlooked Madrid to the East and the mountains farther to the North. Older couples and friends parked their cars as the evening progressed and set up card tables to enjoy the peak of the park as it held the sun.

We sat and enjoyed our bocadillo before heading into the building where we could pick up the teleferico home. At just 3.35 euro for the one-way trip each, the teleferico ride was way worth the trip, complete with a description of what we were seeing to the right and left of the cable car. We enjoyed seeing the park from above and the city from a distance and a much different view. We picked out the palace, the cathedral, the Playa Mayor, and other landmarks that were now becoming familiar as we find ourselves really knowing our way around this glorious city. As we approached the landing dock on the other side, the announcer’s voice told us that we were approaching the Rosaleda, a part of the Parque del Oeste that Dani and Martha had missed last week when exploring the park and seeing the Templo de Debod.

Our first view of this wonderful display of roses was phenomenal, and we understood why we were not supposed to run into this park last time we were in the area (just around the corner from the entrance, it turned out). (Alisa … when you get back to Madrid, check this out … it is more impressive than the Rosaleda in Retiro!) This rose garden was more crowded with flowers and with people, but we enjoyed walking between the gorgeous colors, taking pictures, and stopping to smell the delicious distinctions between varieties. Of course, Martha took too many pictures of the different varieties, but both of us couldn’t really help ourselves, especially with the varieties of rose that were multicolored. Gorgeous!

From the rose garden, we headed back towards home, stopping to rest our feeties in the Plaza de Oriente outside of the Palacio Real. A group of guys sat there playing their guitars and singing Beatles songs before a juggler came through with a louder system to drown them out and collect a crowd. Weary fifty-somethings hobbled by after an obviously long day of walking the Madrid streets. Youngsters tried to get a good round of jump rope going, but had some difficulty, especially when the one girl tried to jump with her dog in her hands. In general, we loved the break and the people watching. Back at home, Dani miraculously managed to cook a delicious pizza of tuna and bacon (better than expected …) when we don’t have an oven. She then turned to Yahtzee while Martha typed away from more on the computer and the shadows grew longer to end a very good day.

Have a great week! Much love,

Martha and Dani

PS—Note that a link to the Flamenco in Madrid video has been posted on the original blog posting for that day, as well as in the panel to the right under "Links to Videos and Friends' Blogs" If you can't find it, take a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxaG-uH-4uI.