TRS is using COVID funds to issue a health insurance payment. I know I should use the money for something else, but I am spending it on a private room near the Prado museum. I can face exploring in the cold better if I have somewhere warm to go afterwards. Forgetting my silk sleeping bag liner was an expensive mistake!
But I am figuring this. I will be within walking distance of multiple museums. I’m saving on transportatlon, plus I will have the support of an English-speaking concierge who can help with taking the bus to Pola de Allande. But more importantly, I will be warm!
I’m wearing both sets of long Johns and I stole two extra blankets. I’m still cold. The blankets are so small I can’t keep them on. That I’m by the window doesn’t help.
So now I have a choice. Go to a home store and buy a big warm blanket, find a camping store and get a thermal blanket, or change hotels. I’m leaning toward the last one, but a private room is not cheap. I might be ready to spend the money though. I’m tired of being cold! I am a Texan. We don’t do cold.
The restaurant I thought I was going to had no one in it, so I went to the cafe next to it. No menu, so I ordered tortilla. Here is a picture just for Bartlett.
Tortilla de Espagnola (frittata with potatoes and onions)
It was delicious! I so wanted cafe con leche, but 8 pm is too late for coffee. I was going to use my card, but the cost was only 2.50. I couldn’t use a card for that, so I paid cash. I hope I have change for the bus tomorrow. Now for that script.
I had to find an ATM before I went anywhere. So I used the WIFI at the hostel to find one the map said was 0.3 miles away. It wasn’t there. I took a picture of my street so I could find it again.
Calle Napoles at the intersection with Calle Andorra
So I figured,”Find a major street and there’ll be an ATM.” Ummm, no. I walked over a mile down Calle de Silvano (a street people kept telling me about yesterday) and never saw one. I had to turn on Calle de Canillas (another major street) before I found one. On the way I passed a man with my hiking poles who wasn’t a pilgrim. I wanted to bring mine but there wasn’t room.
Hiking poles just like mine!
However I did find a supermercado AND a McDonald’s. Actually the McDonald’s was in the food court of a shopping mall, so I found Starbucks and Taco Bell as well. I didn’t go into the mall, although on second thought they might have had a sport store. I want a thermal blanket ( one of those silver jobbies; I meant to get one before I left.)
It is spring here in Madrid, but I was out today in long underwear, jeans, a turtleneck, a hoodie, and a plastic rain jacket and I was only a little too warm some of the time. Texan through and through. There were only three of us in a room for six last night. If that is true again I’m stealing some blankets off another bed. Either that or doubling up on the long underwear. Maybe both. The supermercado had something Antonio loves that I am never making for him.
Yep. That’s octopus.
I also bought a cookie I love that you can’t get in Texas.
Best with cafe con leche
Thin, crisp, buttery, with a hint of cinnamon…Oh, they are so good. I ate so many on the way home I replaced almost all the calories I used walking four miles.
Aaron has asked me if I found the plain in Spain where it rains. Well, it was raining today but I think you can see a plain isn’t anywhere close.
There may be rain but that ain’t no plain
Cars in Madrid are smaller than in the USA but not as small as I expected. And clearly the rules for parking are different.
In Texas you could never park so close to a corner
Anyway, I was so tired after my walk I laid down and napped. Had a really weird dream too. Now it’s after 6:30 and the Prado closes at 8:00, so I will try again tomorrow.
Tonight I think I will go to the restaurant next door and have something hot. I had a ham and bacon sandwich from the supermercado for lunch. (Breakfast was the salad, which was perfectly good.) I could cook but I’m scared of the kitchen. It’s in the front lobby, so everyone can see you’re incompetent. I will also work on that script I was supposed to finish on the plane. I have got to make a decision about directing too.
Yesterday I eventually figured out that even though my map wasn’t giving me directions, I appeared as a blue dot and I could track my progress. Until the cab driver, I was so far off the map from my destination I couldn’t even see myself.
And I realize that money is a protection. Had I the funds, I could have taken a nice safe cab. But I wouldn’t have had the adventure (even wracked as it was with visions of street sleeping and police stations.) With more money, I might have stayed in a safe, comfortable hotel with a helpful concierge to smooth my way. I wouldn’t have had the trouble and worry and exhaustion of yesterday.
But armor is not only protection, it is insulation. It keeps out things you might want to let in.
I saw what great care the Spanish take of their elderly, as I passed pair after pair of someone giving an older person their arm. I saw parents walking with their children, person after person walking their dog. And cars that actually SAW ME, a pedestrian. I felt respected by the traffic even though I was walking. In the USA the attitude is “Well, if you didn’t want to get hurt you should have been in a car like a sensible person.” That’s if they even realize they hit you. Drivers in the USA, or maybe Texas, more accurately, only see other drivers.
Anyway, back to money. Schwab did an override and released my funds early, but I still don’t have a lot. ( I can just get to the little I have.) And I can pay another $10 to be a little blue dot again. That will save a lot of the stress and worry. BUT I won’t be as willing to reach out for directions. Insulation as well as protection.
I think I’m going to do it though. Once I get to Pola de Allande I won’t be going much of anywhere, and I do have the money coming from the rental of the house.
So when I go to the Prado, today’s adventure, I will be a blue dot on a bus. It’s too far to walk and now that I can access more than four euros I’m comfortable spending the money. I just hope not to need a bathroom.
I could not figure out how to flush the toilet on the plane. I eventually concluded it would do so automatically when I opened the door. Not so. I left a mess for the next person.
So the toilet I used this morning wouldn’t flush. It had a knob on the top that came off in my hand. And I thought, “ I can’t leave a mess again; I just can’t.” But how much more complicated than an American toilet can a Spanish toilet be? So I took the top off the tank and pushed on the part the knob was to control. No dice. So I pulled. It flushed. And in getting it back together I dropped my phone in the tank.
FORTUNATELY, I insisted on a waterproof case for my phone, even waited extra days to get one. And I’m pretty religious about putting the charging tab back in. So all is well. But I would really like to have an adventure that doesn’t involve getting lost or a bathroom.
So if I wasn’t an experienced pilgrim showering would have been a challenge. Since I am, I had plastic bags with me, one of them big enough to hold my clothes. Showers are small stalls with a curtain and no distinction between genders. Hooks are outside the stall.
Next to the one I was in; that one was occupied
So, experienced pilgrim that I am, I put my phone and money belt in a bag, and all my clothes except my pants in a bag. The bags stayed in the shower with me. I of course took the shower closest to the hooks. Balancing while sliding your feet in and out of flip flops to dress and undress is a trick that can’t be described.
Sinks are in a separate room with two toilets each in their own room. I was trying to turn on the light in the sink room and turned it out on a gentleman on the toilet! I learned this because I heard, “La luz, por favor.” “ Oh! Perdon !” I said. Nada,” he replied.
I slunk off into the adjoining sink room and hoped he wouldn’t look over. I was just finishing my teeth when a different man came out of the toilet in the room I was in. “Una mujer,” he said, clearly startled. He then proceeded to assume, since he was unaware the bathroom was coed, that I was the sort of woman who hung around in men’s bathrooms. Either that or he was trying to direct me to the right one.
When I didn’t respond, he looked at the door and saw the coed sign. “It’s for both,” I confirmed. Awareness mixed with a small amount of embarrassment washed across his face and he gave me a little wave good-bye, slightly flirtatiously, and proceeded to do that every time he saw me again. Apparently I have a bathroom buddy.
I looked up directions to the grocery before I left. It was quite a walk and I forgot a bag so I had to buy one. I bought bread, salad, an apple, and Coke Zero. They have caffeine-free Coke Zero here! That’s it. I’m moving.
So I go to walk back and my map won’t work. Or at least it won’t give me any directions. So I make a guess and start out. I discover being a pilgrim is very different from being a tourist. The trail for a pilgrim is marked, and if you get off there are people who know you are lost just by looking at you. Not so if you’re just an elderly lady with shopping.
I’m not in a tourist area so there is very little English. I tried a farmacia, thinking they would need English. Nope. Tried a fruteria (fruit stand,) because I was desperate. Most helpful was a cab driver. I couldn’t take the cab because I only have four euros cash left.
Since the last good long sleep I got was Saturday, after walking so many miles (not sure how many; Apple Watch died) I was so exhausted I had to nap before I could even finish this post. I hope the salad I bought is still good in the morning. Maybe I’ll risk it in the communal fridge.
I went to Reception and got a towel. (“Toalla” pronounced “toe-Ahd-ja.”) Now I’m going to go wash off some grime, brush my teeth, and take my medicine so I can sleep. I’ve had all the adventures I can afford today.
They don’t speak much English here and don’t quite know what to do with me. But until I get the money from the house (which finally rented!) I don’t have a lot to spare. And pennilessness is the stuff from which adventures are made!
Travels and Adventures with Jane 