Los Conquistadores Españoles

 

Okay, maybe we’re being a little aggressive in saying we’ve come to conquer Spain. More than likely, we’ll find ourselves not conquering, but rather, falling in love with Spain and the Spaniards. We will find out along the way. So far, they have been extremely welcoming to us.

The flight over ‘the pond’ was the usual mix of people able to sleep and those of us who don’t do so well. One woman two seats ahead of us decided to party through the night and watched movies and drank wine all night long. Maybe she doesn’t have Netflix at home. They gave us all noise-cancelling headphones. At one point, around 3 am somewhere, she had her headphones on, and she was yelling out at the movie, “…don’t give up on him, don’t give up on him!” Susane got a laugh while Malcolm slept through it.

Another gentleman in front of us brought his seat back and was out like a light for the duration. We were in and out of shallow sleep and arrived restless and exhausted. 

 The word of the day is "ritmo circadiano." We seemed to have lost our Spanish circadian rhythm somewhere on the flight over. 

Shortly after landing and getting through immigration, where we were welcomed with a Spanish smile from the immigration lady. We met our driver, John Brenden. What do you know, our first introduction to Spain is a taxi driver from the UK and Australia who has been here for 30 plus years. John was great and taught us our first bit of Spanish trivia. It seems that when it rains here, the Spaniards stay inside and wait for the sun to come out versus the Londoners who just plod through the rain. It is a very interesting perspective of the value of time. It was our first introduction to Spanish Time, a factor we’ve since heard mentioned several times.

John also recommended that we go have a drink at the 360^o Sky Bar at the Hotel Riu. On Easter Sunday, we did just that and it was awesome, Outside, on the 27^th floor of the hotel there is a wonderful patio. We enjoyed the view of the city from one of the tallest buildings in the city. When we were leaving, we walked around the entire building. As we moved over one section, we were already halfway across when Susanne realized that we were walking over a clear plexiglass walkway that was open for 27 floors below! Her fear of heights kicked in and I heard a little scream behind me followed by a warning to herself to “don’t look down, don’t look down!”  She did make it over but was not interested in trying the hanging section on the other side of the building.

That really is a glass plank across the 26th floor void.

 

And this one just juts out from the wall. No, that is not Susanne and never would be.

In the distance, the Guadarrama Mountains. 

Madrid is a city, with all that cities have to offer. High density with lots of people on the streets. The people-watching is awesome. From the high-style fashioned ladies dressed up for Easter Sunday to those of us in denim, it became evident that there really is no dress code. We missed the nighttime version of the city as we found ourselves tired early. John described it as a replica of Time Square. From the number of people we saw in the afternoon, we could imagine it.

Truly a classical European city!

And for people like us, who watch YouTube to try to figure out what to wear, forget it. Be comfortable. Wear the same thing that you would wear in New York or Denver or even Rio Rancho. We probably could have brought one or two less pairs of shoes and for Malcolm, at size 13, that’s a lot less baggage.

As the rolling hills of Spain move by us out the window and with the Sierra de Guadarrama snowcapped mountains in the distance, we’re on the train to Barcelona. We’re hoping that just maybe, in the next few days we’ll kick the jetlag. We’re doing a great job of staying in the moment. We’ve left our Tax-Aide work behind, and we are fully here now.