Wanderung 14

The Plane to Spain replaced by the Bounding Main!

April-May 2007

Day 30: Tuesday May 15 2007, Hotel Osuno in Madrid, Spain

2007 Noon position: 40 degrees 27.189' N latitude, 003 degrees 36.711' W longitude(Hotel Osanu, Madrid, Spain)

Bob:

My intestinal bug was still hanging on, which began to seem more like a case of E. Coli infection than food poisoning. If so, the most likely culprit would be the tomatoes I had been consuming as snacks all across Spain because I'm not sure I was absolutely faithful about washing them all the time. Still, I had more energy and could actually walk out in the morning to look for breakfast. My gaits over the last few days--stagger, shamble, totter, and walk--reminded me of an old song about a horse whose gaits were "walk, trot, stumble, and fall" except that I was taking it in the reverse order! Once we were at the commercial district, we first tried the McDonalds, but not only were they still closed at 9 o'clock in the morning, they didn't have their hours of operation even posted anywhere! Still, that might not have made any difference, because the large department store across the street clearly posted its hours of operation as 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, but it was still shuttered tightly when we passed by at 11 a.m.

Exploring further we found a curious store named Mallorca that sold liquor, gifts, and prepared sandwiches. Maybe their motto was "anything to make a Euro!". The store had several high tables with bar stools over near the windows where you could eat (or drink, presumably), so we bought coffee, water, and sandwiches for our morning meal. That gave me enough energy to continue walking (slowly, and with pauses to rest) across the interstate to the Park of Juan Carlos I, which occupies a large tract of land just west of the Airport and I think just south of the Spanish parliament and national government area.

Monika:

Bob was feeling better but still only 60% on strength and stamina and still running.... So we decided to stay in the area. There was an extensive rather interesting looking park across one of the interstates we thought we would investigate. But first we had to look for breakfast since the hotel did not come with it. I had spotted the ubiquitous Golden Arches across from the supermarket. But when we got there, they were closed. Not much else was open and the traffic was extremely light although it was a Tuesday. We finally found a place called "Mallorca's" that looked like a bakery, but was a mix of desserts, liquor, and, luckily, sandwiches. I had an egg and tomato croissant while Bob had a ham sandwich.

After this we set out to explore. We crossed the interstate into a section called Campo de Nacciones. It had the Parc de Juan Carlos on one side and a huge complex called Freira de Madrid on the other side to and also a Palacio de Minister and some hotels.


 

Bob:

The park turned out to have large formal garden areas, extensive playgrounds for children, a large assortment of modern sculpture, and even a holocaust memorial. The holocaust memorial was quite new, having been dedicated just a month back in April of 2007 if I read it all correctly, and I found it very evocative. There was a small field of posts with discernable faces on them facing a large flame-like structure that soared into the sky. The little faces all seemed frozen in horror, something like an abstract, sculptural version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream", but multiplied many-fold. I expect that sense of horror and dread was exactly what most of the holocaust victims felt as they entered the camps.

The playgrounds had nice equipment for children but also exercise equipment for adults like stationary bicycle things or big wheels to turn. Providing exercise opportunities for the adults as well as the kids at a playground struck me as a great idea. Some of the apparatus for children, like a mesh of ropes suspended above the ground like a huge spider web, I have just never seen before and it certainly looked to me like pre-teen kids would have fun on it. Actually, if they had suspended it a bit higher, I would have had fun on it.

We in fact found some teen age boys, but they were predictably playing on the sculptures rather than at the playground. In particular, there was a large sculpture of a hand rising up out of the Earth, similar to "The Awakening" sculpture at Hanes Point in Washington, and they were running up the curved side of a finger and trying to do back flips. The older, bigger boys couldn't quite get enough of a rotation going to complete their back flips, but one smaller boy succeeded by having his friend give him a final push in the back while he was in mid air. It was fun to watch them sporting around and clearly feeling their oats.

Monika:

The park seemed to be a favorite for joggers and bikers and once we were inside we could see why. A huge area was ringed and crisscrossed by bike lanes and walkways. In between, were playgrounds with rather original-looking things and also some stuff for adults like a bench with bicycle pedals. There were a lot of interesting sculptures--like five fingers coming out of the sand. At one end was a new memorial to the holocaust that was rather impressive


 

Bob:

At the far side of the park we found a garden with separate areas representing the three cultures of Spain, presumably. I was curious as to which cultures were represented, but there were no plaques, probably because to any Spanish person these three cultures are supremely self-evident. For foreigners, however, things are not as obvious and the only culture I could readily identify was the garden with pools and a Moorish-inspired white ironwork lattice with shapes that strongly reminded me of the doorways in the Alcazar. Another garden had kind of sun-baked adobe walls and very pretty courtyards that might have represented the culture of central Spain, and the final garden had a centerpiece that may have represented the Basque culture, but that's just a guess. At the top of the hill above all three gardens was a fountain that had three major streams flowing into one pool, a statement that was unsubtle enough that even I could get it.

Monika:

Next to it was what was billed as the garden of the three cultures. Unfortunately there were no signs as to what three cultures we were seeing, not even in Spanish. Oh well, at least the gardens looked beautiful and were good for taking pictures. The gardens were remarkably dry. There was a row of what looked like oaks and some figs but very few flowers. Only at the entrance to the park did they have flower beds of rather lush growing rosebushes.

Bob:

I enjoyed the park very much but I knew I was low on stamina and gastroenterologically unstable, so we headed back to the hotel hoping to find an open grocery store along the way. But no luck! So that afternoon I laid down while Monika hunted some food. Spain does not, to my knowledge, allow the widespread idiocy of "home schooling" so the fact that we had seen schoolchildren playing in the park implied that there was a holiday of some kind. That was confirmed by the fact that back in the hotel room there were no noisy recess periods such as on the previous day and possibly explained why businesses that would otherwise have been open were closed. Checking Frommer's guide to Spain, we found that May 15 was, in Madrid only, a special holiday in honor of Saint Isidor, a name previously unknown to us but apparently the patron saint of Madrid.

That evening we took a walk on a hiker-biker trail back over to the commercial center to have dinner at a salad bar buffet that Monika had found earlier on her explorations. The all-you-can-eat buffet was something similar to Super Salad places we have visited in the U.S. with a wide variety of salad offerings, most of which we no-fat veggie mixes and low-fat pasta salads. I stuck to those while Monika enjoyed the pizza and spaghetti offerings as well. Returning to the hotel we updated our journals and, having finally exhausted all the crossword puzzles we had brought with us a month back, we turned in for the night. So our last full day in Spain was a quiet and restful end to a long and eventful Wanderung.

Monika:

After having walked for a couple of hours, Bob was ready to return to the comforts of our hotel room. We were going to stop at the supermarket, but it was closed, despite a sign saying open 10-22. Well we just headed back to the hotel. Bob remarked that the school was awfully quiet too and suggested it may be a holiday. Well I had heard and seen a garbage truck in the morning But beyond that there was not much sign of a life. So I consulted our trusted Frommer's that listed all the holidays, secular ones such as May 1st, and diverse religious ones--I always had envied the kids going to a catholic school, they got a lot more holidays than us protestants. However, May 15th was not listed among the national holidays, but reading on, I found that each city could declare the day of its patron saint a holiday and in particular Madrid's patron saint was Saint Isidor whose day was May 15th. Oh well, how is a poor atheist to know.

Bob collapsed on the bed and I set out to find lunch. Disdaining McDonalds that had opened by now, finding the supermarket still closed I walked past a few more streets finding another rather arid looking park. I finally went back to Mallorca's and picked up two chicken wraps for Bob and a sandwich for me. They packed it all into a very neat take away package with strings around it that I carried back to Bob for lunch.

After lunch Bob rested and I went back out to explore a bike path we had seen. It was easily reached from our hotel and led more directly to the commercial center. It also had lots of different flowers blooming alongside and I had fun taking pictures. I noticed that the cafeteria next to McDonalds was open and had a rather nice looking buffet with a salad bar with lots of variety. For 9.95 Euro you got the salad bar, hot food (pasta and pizza), a drink, and dessert. So I went back to the hotel to report my findings to Bob. He agreed that after two days of sandwiches he felt like something more substantial and we headed out along the bike path. The salad bar was really good with lots of stuff for Bob to eat. The pasta was a little fatty but the pizza was quite good. We did not partake of the dessert but still felt we had had a good meal. After we got back to the hotel I had a good hot bath in a nice big bathtub, and we got to bed early to get a good night's rest for our trip home.

Copyright 2007 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
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