Around The World – Madrid Spain
My goal on this leg of the trip is to make it across to the famous city of Madrid and see if it lives up to the hype.
On my last morning in Barcelona, I walked through my Airbnb neighbourhood only to stumble upon Sagrada Familia, the Gaudi church again. Found a place for mid-afternoon snack, then back to the Airbnb to charge everything up, then off to the train station for the early evening trip.
I arrive at the Chamartin station and go to the High Speed train gates and it was like an airport. I got a visual check of my ticket, then my suitcase and backpack went through an x-ray machine but no scan of me in my jacket. Hundreds of people eventually lined up at a desk. 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time they started barcode-scanning our tickets and we walked down to the platform but the train wasn’t there yet. I have to say, this sucked. I take trains for the convenience and informality, I don’t like where this is going. Most of the reservation fee seems to be spent on security theater. If I want to get x-rayed I’ll take a plane and get there in 1/3 the time.
The first-class section of the train is great, similar to Bordeaux to Barcelona. We left right on time at 6 PM and shortly after two people came by with a drinks cart and handed me a hot towel. I hesitantly asked for a Diet Coke and she handed it to me and moved on to the only other person in the cabin. OK, so this reservation includes a 50 cent can of DC. Then later they brought through a tray with a small sandwich, piece of cake and fruit labelled from Macedonia. OK, so a 5 euro dinner is included in the price too, better but still not good value for money. I’m hoping there’s some kind of personal massage coming in the near future.
We arrive in Madrid, and an easy 10 minute walk through the neighbourhood to my Airbnb. It’s a nice room, should be a good base for my stay here. While I sat on the couch with my laptop, my host Edwin and his friend brought out their dinner (at 10 PM of course) and had made a plate for me, to my surprise. I explained no meat and no onions…they just shook their heads… They say I can get laundry done just a few meters away, so I’ll do that tomorrow and look for a tour bus in the morning. Also, my laptop power connector is failing, the wires inside insulation have been bent too many times, I have to get it just in the right position for the power to get through. This will end in tears, sparks and fire so time for a new one.
The next morning I get onto the Eurail web site travel planner app only to find it shows no connections between Madrid and Lisbon. At all. Hmm. I go to the official Eurail web site and I do find a train, once a day, leaving at 9:50 PM, it’s a sleeper called the ‘Lusitania’. I hope I have better luck on it than its namesake ship. There are several different options: seats, 4-bed cabin, 2-bed and 1-bed Preferente cabins with a washbasin, 2-bed and 1-bed Gran Clase cabins with private shower and toilet. There’s also a cafe-bar. I’ll have to see what’s available when I get to the ticket desk.
First job is to do some laundry. There is a self-serve laundromat right around the corner. The machines all run from a wall-mounted touch screen payment machine and large LCD display, pretty sweet. In my excitement, or due to a poor user interface, I put my laundry in washing machine #2 and paid for machine #3. I watched in dismay as the cycle started and I couldn’t stop it or open the door, I suppose so laundry doesn’t get stolen or taken out if you leave for a while. Oh well, #3 is going to be really, really clean for the next person. I paid for machine #2 and off it went. I dried the clothes in a dryer, paying special attention, without incident.
I walked to the nearby train station and found the ticket office. I was surprised as a lot of people seemed to be standing around and sitting. I went over to the take-a-number machine and found I had 67 people in line ahead of me. There were two clerks working at a counter that had 6 windows. I walked over to the nearby Information Desk to confirm I was in the right place. There were two people sitting there, constantly pointing people to the ticket desks. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if, I don’t know, one or both of those people started working tickets too? The Information man told me it was a holiday, Feast of the Blood Of Little Baby Jesus or something. I waited 15 minutes and the clerks processed exactly 1 customer. And then one of the ladies got up and left for the day. Nope, this is not working for me. I checked the Eurail app and it said there’s a special Eurail help desk at the station I’ll actually be leaving from tomorrow. So I took a short train ride to get there and found the ticket desk. It turns out it’s the man at window #13. He told me he can only make reservations for today, not tomorrow because of the holiday. I lost it, in my mind only, while smiling politely at him. OK, so much for getting a reservation locked in early, I hope there’s some space left tomorrow.
Leaving the station in a huff, I started walking at random through streets and parks, mumbling to myself about the general stupidity of the world. After living in Thailand for two years, it seems like they have the right idea. Take things slow and don’t care about anything. That works well, unless something important is happening, then everything goes to shit. After a little more than 5 months on the road, I got my first homesick pangs. I miss my bed, my condo, my beach, my food places, my favourite bands, my small circle of friends and the life of the don’t-give-a-fuck beach bum. I need a big change of culture and scenery, I’m looking forward a week or so to my entry into Morocco. Warm, mysterious, the smell of spices, the souks, handicrafts, the mountains, the ocean, the very different culture and history. That’s going to reboot me out of this ennui.
Walking around I found another branch of fnac, the same place I got the Wifi booster and bought a 3rd party 90 watt power supply with about 20 interchangable plugs, one fits my Lenovo perfectly. Woo hoo! More power!
Walk, walk, walk through the streets. Heading home I stop in at an Indian restaurant, the waiter swears I can get paneer in a sauce with no onions and damn if he wasn’t right! Yummy. Not as good as my favourite Nepalese-family-run place back in Hua Hin but I’ll take it.
Back at the Airbnb, I find out my host is wrapping up his PhD in Food Packaging Science in January. Hadn’t thought about it much but with the growing population and food traversing the planet, we need to make sure it gets there with all of the freshness and nutritiousness still inside. Locally grown is best of course but bananas don’t grow in Norway.
The next morning I’m up and at the train station ridiculously early at 8:30 AM, well, early for me these days. Same ticket office as yesterday but nobody in line and 3 clerks working. I show her my Eurail pass and ask for the Lusitania hotel train to Lisbon. She brings it up on her computer and it only shows one possibility for me, a Preferente Single. Single is good, so I’ll take it. And it’s 91.25 euros. Ouch. Considering it’s an 11-hour inter-country train and hotel in one, that still a steep surcharge over my Eurail pass. There had better be some food and massage involved. We’ll see.
Went back to the Airbnb to pack and put my stuff in the corner. I’ll come back later, pick it up and head to the Madrid-Chamatrin departure at 9:50 PM. Since I’ve locked in the ticket, I Instant Booked a 3 day Airbnb in Lisbon. It’s a small city but there are interesting day trips to be had I hear. I also want to visit my electric car buddy Paulo Almeida and get his help with my GEVCU electric car control box’s Wifi module. It won’t go into base station mode, only Ad Hoc. Sorry, too much information.
I walked out and found the hop-on-hop-off bus, jumped on and did the old city route. Past the Prado museum, many old churches, palaces and government buidings. It’s all starting to blur. Europe. Churches. Buildings. Twisty streets. Upscale shops. Cafes. If it’s Tuesday, I must be in Madrid. At the end of the loop, I jumped off and had lunch. What they called a “California” sandwich which turned out to be an amazing roasted vegetable and feta cheese thing, asked for “sin cebolla” and they came through! Reminded me of the Grilled Veggie Wrap at Jaffa in SLO. Man do I miss that!
While I was eating I got a message from my Instant Book host in Lisbon – cancelled! I almost lost it until I read that there was a water leak upstairs and the flat was under reconstruction. I don’t blame them for that, but they need to block their calendar off until they can host again. I found another Instant Book and grabbed it. It’s one of 3 bedrooms and they’re OK with my dropping off my stuff at 8 AM and then coming to check in later in the afternoon.
After lunch I jumped on the new city loop of the bus and watched the world go by. My mind drifted from the specific buildings going by to the big picture of the flow of life in this city for the last 1000 years. So much history. Wow dude.
At the end of the loop I was at the other end of the city so I decided to walk back, through narrow cobblestone streets, opening up to big squares with some kind of fountain or statue to some god or person, then back down another twisty lane. This is the kind of place I could live, tiny streets and tiny shops, so much to explore and eat and experience. Very happy that I stopped here.
Late this afternoon, off to Lisbon on the hotel train.
