I felt *much* better this morning... 7 hours of sleep, breakfast, IM conversation back home... then rushed off to the airport to meet ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
patgreene, dawnd and sarahh. We were to rendezvous at the Avis counter if we missed each other outside the Customs exit. I somehow missed Dawn, who was first off, but only for a few minutes. Sarah and Pat followed 15 minutes later. It seemed... slightly strange seeing these particular familiar faces in this particular familiar environment. Contextual merging, again ;).
I plied them with coffee and tea and sandwiches at an airport cafe, then persuaded Sarah to cancel her wrong-side-of-town reservation that QSS travel had done, in favor of an uncertain week in the same hotel as the rest of us (no guarantee of a room there Mon-Wed, as they're full). After freshening, we reconvened and headed into Madrid. They received a whirlwind tour of the central city as I hunted in vain for parking (I'd forgotten about the huge El Rastro flea market on Sundays near Plaza Mayor). At one point, I turned the wrong way down a narrow one-lane, one-way street... realized my mistake... too narrow to turn around... so I floored it to get to the next intersection just as a car was about to turn in facing me ;). We finally parked near Atocha station (site of the 3/11 bombings) and looked for lunch... Dawn had spotted the "Museum of Ham" facing the Prado, so there we went. Mucho jamon. Better melones. Then off to other, less carnal, museums.
The Prado was a bit crowded... Pat had been draggy, seemed to wake up a bit at the Titians. Dawn and Sarah made bad Durer jokes at "Adam" and "Eve". They reacted in different ways to Bosch's Garden of Earthy Delights... (below). Huge grin and a shock of recognition, from Dawn, thousand-mile stare from Sarah, dazed wobbliness from Pat. We went a bit further and Pat needed to sit, so she went ahead. Then to the ladies' room. Then apparently vanished for 45 minutes, after which I found her in the museum infirmary (echoes ofhopeforyou...). We all headed back to our hotel, the three new arrivals all crashed, and I sat around sending IMs to tenacious_snail and p3aches while putting local numbers in my Spanish cell phone. I was energetic, feeling the best I had in 10 days! Yay!
Dawn arose, came by, Pat got up, and then SS joined us for dinner somewhere in north Torrejon at a small cafe we found while driving around lost. Nice gambas de plancha ("shrimp heads, shrimp heads, roly-poly shrimp heads...") . Then ice cream and chocolate liqueur back in the hotel bar before bedtime... some challenges, but I feel perky and like the day was OK, if not smooth. Tomorrow... Monday... work begins.
( 2 photos follow... )
patgreene, dawnd and sarahh. We were to rendezvous at the Avis counter if we missed each other outside the Customs exit. I somehow missed Dawn, who was first off, but only for a few minutes. Sarah and Pat followed 15 minutes later. It seemed... slightly strange seeing these particular familiar faces in this particular familiar environment. Contextual merging, again ;). I plied them with coffee and tea and sandwiches at an airport cafe, then persuaded Sarah to cancel her wrong-side-of-town reservation that QSS travel had done, in favor of an uncertain week in the same hotel as the rest of us (no guarantee of a room there Mon-Wed, as they're full). After freshening, we reconvened and headed into Madrid. They received a whirlwind tour of the central city as I hunted in vain for parking (I'd forgotten about the huge El Rastro flea market on Sundays near Plaza Mayor). At one point, I turned the wrong way down a narrow one-lane, one-way street... realized my mistake... too narrow to turn around... so I floored it to get to the next intersection just as a car was about to turn in facing me ;). We finally parked near Atocha station (site of the 3/11 bombings) and looked for lunch... Dawn had spotted the "Museum of Ham" facing the Prado, so there we went. Mucho jamon. Better melones. Then off to other, less carnal, museums.
The Prado was a bit crowded... Pat had been draggy, seemed to wake up a bit at the Titians. Dawn and Sarah made bad Durer jokes at "Adam" and "Eve". They reacted in different ways to Bosch's Garden of Earthy Delights... (below). Huge grin and a shock of recognition, from Dawn, thousand-mile stare from Sarah, dazed wobbliness from Pat. We went a bit further and Pat needed to sit, so she went ahead. Then to the ladies' room. Then apparently vanished for 45 minutes, after which I found her in the museum infirmary (echoes of
hopeforyou...). We all headed back to our hotel, the three new arrivals all crashed, and I sat around sending IMs to tenacious_snail and p3aches while putting local numbers in my Spanish cell phone. I was energetic, feeling the best I had in 10 days! Yay! Dawn arose, came by, Pat got up, and then SS joined us for dinner somewhere in north Torrejon at a small cafe we found while driving around lost. Nice gambas de plancha ("shrimp heads, shrimp heads, roly-poly shrimp heads...") . Then ice cream and chocolate liqueur back in the hotel bar before bedtime... some challenges, but I feel perky and like the day was OK, if not smooth. Tomorrow... Monday... work begins.
( 2 photos follow... )
