This is the third part of my post on Madrid. To read the second part, click here.

May 9, 2009

After leaving the Prado Museum, we walked to the Parque del Buen Retiro. As mentioned before, this was once for the royals only, but is now open to all. It is a beautiful escape from the hustle bustle of the city all around it. It is also quite a bit cooler due to the heavy canopy of the trees.

After eating some lunch, we walked over to the train station through which we had originally arrived in Madrid (Puerta Atocha). There is actually a rain forest/tropical garden INSIDE the train station. We were there during the siesta hours, so we were not able to enter the garden completely, but it is not that large and you can pretty much see it from the outside. There is boggy area that is loaded with turtles. There were hundreds of turtles of all sizes and ages in this part. Very cool.

We went back to our room at this point because after spending 10 days non stop in Barcelona and Madrid, we are literally worn out and can barely move another step. It has been absolutely wonderful and I am very glad we came. But I need to rest now!

We took a ride back to our hotel on the Madrid Metro. It was very different from the metro in Barcelona. The stations were definitely larger in Madrid. A ride in Madrid is only €1, while it is €1.35 in Barcelona. In Barcelona, every line that we went on had maps showing which line the train you were on belonged to. They also had both spoken announcements and a computerized display that told you what stop you were at and what the next stop was. In Madrid, the train that we went on had a map of 7 different lines in it, and did not help you identify what line you were on. They also did not have any announcements (or any other indication) about the station you were in or what the next station would be. I am truly surprised by this. Madrid is far larger than Barcelona. One would expect that the system would be higher quality. The ride was very smooth and comfortable, though.

We did venture out again for dinner. This time we went to the Chueca part of Madrid. This is the more Bohemian section of town, and also the gay section. We ate dinner at a restaurant in the Chueca Square. Great people watching. The people here are spectacularly beautiful. They are just so obnoxious. In Italy, they are beautiful and not so obnoxious.

After eating, we decided to try to go to a gay bar. We had a beer there, but once again, we ran into that attitude. There were not that many people in the place (like maybe 3 other than us), but still the staff could not have been less interested. We went to the downstairs bar where we proceeded to be completely ignored by the bartender and another staff member that were down there. They were so busy either talking to each other about how fabulous they are or playing with their cell phones. They literally acted like we were not there. They would not even look at us. I just do not get that attitude and I do not like it one bit. It literally sucks the life out of you. After that, all I wanted to do was leave and go back to my room. I did not even want to try another bar. That’s just sad and there is really no need for people to be this way. I will be happy to get back to the friendly people of Austin. We have barely experienced a drop of hospitality since we got here. Too bad.

One thing that we did not see any sign of is the economic downturn. There were ongoing building projects everywhere in both Madrid and Barcelona. There were hordes of tourists everywhere as well. So there is plenty of money coming in to the hotels, restaurants, bars, shops, etc. in both cities.

May 10, 2009

Today is our flight home. We arranged for a cab to take us from the hotel to the airport. Little did I know that the cab would cost us €50 (about $70). Geesh. That’s really ridiculous. Next time I will look into a train. That has to be a lot cheaper.

The airport is HUGE. After going through security, we have to take the escalators down about 4 levels to a tram that will take us to our gate. The tram ride was at least 15 minutes. Is the airport really that large? When I get to a place with internet access, I am going to have to look at the map of this airport. I cannot believe that it would be this far. It must be in a different location altogether.

We got to the airport before 9 and went right into the line to check in. By the time we got off of the tram and got to the Passport Control area, it was already 10 am. (I should mention how SLOW the lines are everywhere in Spain. I have never seen slower cashiers – everywhere we went. We were third in line at our ticket counter and it still took over 30 minutes to get our boarding passes and check our luggage – and no one was having to do anything out of the ordinary).

Passport Control went fairly quickly, after which it was about a 10 minute walk to the gate area. We finally got there and only had about 20 minutes until the plane started boarding.

People had lined up into the Priority Access group and regular access group on both sides of the gate. But as we found in other parts of Spain, the line really didn’t mean anything. When they actually called the groups to board, the people in line just rushed the front of the line, bypassing all of the other people that had been waiting in line with them. Grr. One of the guys in line in front of us made the comment, “well, we are in Spain.” That about sums it up.

We are flying on a Boeing 777. This is such a great plane. Our flight over to Barcelona was not fun. Hopefully this will be a better flight. We are flying through Miami, then on to Dallas and finally Austin. When we got on, it turned out that John’s seat would not recline so he ended up getting moved to another seat on the other side of the plane, about 20 rows behind me. That wasn’t a problem as I had plenty of reading and music and movies to occupy my time and he was able to relax.

This plane is one that has the individual screens at each seat, with choices for movies, TV shows, games and radio. That certainly helps the time pass.

It was such a wonderful trip. I am so glad that we had the opportunity to go and I am sure that I will go again in the future.

To see some of my photos of Madrid, click here.