June 11 to 12—Dia a la Pisina (Day at the Pool) and Making Reservations

Dear Family and Friends,

Monday, June 11, Martha and Dani trekked North through the city streets, water and a towel in tow, to the Canal de Isabel II recreation area for a day by the pool. For many vacationers, this would sound like standard fare, but for us, it was a treat-way to spend a day—and perhaps life changing. Many of our friends (Dawn and MO, Jon and Carrie, Keith, Jamie, you all know who you are …) seek out the sun, the beach, and the poolside for the majority of their vacationing time. Not us, we have always been on the move. And since Martha grew up so close to the beach, she doesn't particularly find it a novel escape. But, our minds may have been changed!

What a gorgeous day we had, frolicking in the water, lounging poolside with beverages, reading our books, and falling asleep in the sunshine. Ever glad to have sunscreen, we managed to gain some color and not be burned to a crisp. Parts of our bodies that have never seen the light of day (such as Martha's belly) even came out to play as the day passed pleasantly enjoying the community pool and the sounds of school kids and families enjoying time together.

Perhaps even more amazing about our Monday, however, was that we took absolutely NO photos. So, you will just have to imagine us in our bathing suits, chillin' by the pool under the afternoon sun until it closed at 8 PM, then walking 'downhill' all the way home, stopping only shortly for bocadillos at 100 Montaditos once again. (Hey, filling dinners for eight or nine euro are our greatest current challenge as we fend for grub in our wandering afternoons/evenings!)

Tuesday, Day 29, the main focus of our day was to figure out our travel plans when we leave Madrid 22 June. Our intention has been to learn enough about the bus’ and trains’ schedules to get us up to Santiago de Compostela in time to spend a couple of nights there and make our flight to Frankfurt on 28 June. We believe we will easily be able to make the few-hundred mile journey from Madrid in three nights. Between Madrid and Santiago de Compostela in the far coastal Northwestern part of the country, in the Celtic Galicia region of Spain that neither Martha nor Dani has experienced yet, are many towns of plentiful culture to explore, including Salamanca, Leon, Zamora, and Valladolid. So, we intend to spend at least a night in Salamanca, maybe a couple in Leon, and then three in Santiago de Compostela; already Martha was able to book a cheap hostal for those last three nights before we leave Spain for a while. We have queries out to places in Salamanca to try to book a place for the weekend before we leave Madrid! The other two nights will likely be ‘winged’ in the ‘winging it’ sense.

In the evening, we took another walk into the Madrid streets, Martha in the lead on an urban trek to ‘go down streets we had not yet gone down’. We also had decided to treat ourselves to a dinner outside of the apartment, so stopped often to look at menus and prices. We passed by one place, Restaurante La Puebla, which had interesting fare at reasonable prices. But it was still pretty early in the evening, close to 7 PM, so we headed up to Plaza de Santa Ana to enjoy people watching and share a snack of puffed, BBQ-flavored corn. We also noticed that the theatre in Plaza de Santa Ana had tickets for Tuesday and Wednesday from 30 euro to three euro, and decided we’d check on the cheap seats the next day when the window was open.

By 9 PM, we were ready to eat, so wandered back down to Restaurante La Puebla for an excellent dinner comprising: a bottle of house red wine, white bean and ham soup that we split, salmon and potatoes for Martha, and a fried hunk of meat (we’re still not sure what it was, but it was good) for Dani. All for about 24 euro, so it was not bad considering most other places had dishes starting at 13 euro or more! Very full, we headed back up to the trendy Chueca district to enjoy another glass of wine each and sit in the plaza. Before we knew it, we were sharing the large concrete bench with three lovely men: Ivanof from Bulgaria, Hans from Belgium, and Jacob from the African country of Mauritania.

We had a great night chit-chatting with them about their lives as a marinero, train worker, and singer, respectively. Hans offered to give us free train fare back and forth to Amsterdam should we wish to return while going through Belgium during our short time in Germany (soon!). Hans works six months of the year with the train service in Belgium and was visiting Madrid and Toledo to continue his hobby of traveling to capitals to photograph them. Ivanoff talked of his time studying at the university of Dyanetics in Madrid and shared some of his experiences with his work on the boat in E Asia, in particular. He was a lovely gentleman who really wanted to walk us home, until Jacob confirmed that our walk back home was pretty safe. Jacob had also lived an incredible life, leaving Western Africa to live in Cuba, then the Canary Islands, then SE Asia (particularly Thailand) for a while. He invited us to see him see in the area on Thursday night!

Back at home later than usual, we crashed, sleeping until the alarm sounded the next day to a busy and exciting new Wednesday!

In love and light,

Martha and Dani