Knitting in Transit

Surely, you are thinking to yourself....nay, you are muttering under your breath, "seriously, Michelle. Finish up with the trip already." And...you'd have a good point. And, I got to use the words "nay" and "mutter" in the same sentence. Clearly, I'm sort of losing my mind. There won't be any pictures with this post. This will be where I finish up writing about Monday in Madrid, which I have mentioned before was one of my most favorite days on our Spain trip. Madrid is just an amazing city. Knowing what I know about life, I'm sure I'll be back there someday. Because life is good and lovely. And I'm an optimist. So, after my little shopping trip, I tried to take a little nap. As I recall, this wasn't too terribly successful. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but the bed in the apartment in Madrid was very noisy. The slightest movement set off a series of squeaks and groans that would only be rivaled by the ominous ...

Doesn't that sound awful? Monday continued...as though Mondays aren't bad enough already. Well, if you are in Madrid though, it isn't so bad. We left the park. It was sad, but we had to do it. I really wanted to see the Plaza Mayor , and we had reservations for a Flamenco show that night that didn't start until 10:30, dangerously close to the "Michelle would rather be in bed" time zone. Okay, SMACK DAB in the middle of that time zone, so I was hoping to get in a nap in the afternoon. That, and we were kind of hungry. When is that never the case? So, off we went. Here are some random street shots to tide you over. A building in Madrid. Another building in Madrid. There were far less people on scooters in Madrid than there were in Barcelona. Getting to the Plaza Mayor involved another Metro ride. Yippee! I really did enjoy riding the Metro. I liked checking out people's shoes and occasionally there was a musician on board. Amplified and ev...

I've gotten to the point in blogging about this trip where I have to actually go to my husband and ask him, "What did we do for lunch that day? Did we eat lunch? I don't remember eating lunch that day?" and then he has to really think and then say, "Oh...we went to that square, and there was the nice waiter". Oh, yes! How could I forget.? This is even more troubling since you all know how I love to eat. All in all, it is good that I have finally arrived at our final, full day in Spain. I think I will divide this post into two or maybe even three separate posts. We'll see how it goes. This was one of my most favorite days of the trip. The others would be our first day in Lisbon; the tour of the winery and olive mill; that first day in Barcelona; and now this last day in Madrid. It makes me feel good that when I look back on the best days, there were days we spent with the entire group - days we spent with just a couple other people - and a day we...

Ah! Sunday in Madrid! David and I awoke in our rather posh hotel, cozy in our bed with a fluffy down comforter and crisp white sheets, king size pillows to match the king size bed. Apparently, the Melia Castilla has quite the conference center, and has an auditorium that can seat a million people. Of course, I am kidding. I honestly don't remember how many, but I remember being impressed and wondering where they would put them all. It was also fun to stay someplace that provided a bevy of toiletries: a dental kit complete with toothbrush, floss, and toothpaste, a razor, of course a shower cap, a comb! I was running a little low on shampoo at this point so all these items were tucked into my luggage for use at the apartment. Yay! I also spied this interesting ad (?) in our room. Roughly translated it means something like, "anyone tell you like watching television". That's how google translate does it anyway. This baffles me. Is this an ad for a m...

So, when last we left off, we were at the Barcelona airport. Did I mention what a nice airport it is? And it has some great shopping. I picked up some fun things at the Nartura store, which is described on this website as "A home ware and gift shop offering everything from candles to incense sticks" but I got some jewelry there. Yay! The flight to Madrid was pretty uneventful. We were on Vueling airlines again which was just lovely. They had a little catalog and you could order a keychain shaped like the airplane seat belt buckle. If they had actually come around and taken orders, I so would have gotten one. I was surprised by how arid the middle of Spain appeared from the air...then again, they were having a drought. Eventually, I felt as though we were flying in circles. I kept seeing the same building below. Then the pilot came on to inform us that we were indeed flying in circles. So observant, am I. Eventually we landed in Madrid. Nice airport. We got our bags. We...