Want to Come for Christmas?: Chapter 8: Following Grace Through Madrid

Chapter 8 & 9: Following Grace through Madrid/Thys is the Thyssen-Bergomusen Museum

December 23 and 24, 2013

After what, a week later, seemed like a breeze of a train ride through northeastern Spain to the center, we arrived in Madrid. Grace began by telling us we were out in the boonies, but we never really knew where we were: we just kept on following her and wondering HOW she actually knew where she was at all times! Whether we we're traversing the streets and alleys near our new apartment, or wandering through a plaza, she always seemed to be like a GPS point anywhere we were going.

So the first part of our journey through Spain's Capitol was finding our apartment. Did I say anything about how good Grace's sense of direction was? Always walking about ten steps ahead, she brought us to Plaza de Comendadoras, where we met Morela. She ushered us through our place, and we were a little shocked that we had made the choice that we did. It was a wee bit small for 3 Wards, but we could do it: after all, we would be out and about most of the time, anyway. As we had done in Paris, we plopped down our suitcases, and rolled out the door again.

This time, however, we went rolling about Madrid, seeing the Plazas all done up in Christmas decor, as well as with Mercados de Navidado. We also went to the Palacio Real and the church across the yard. (It was a very large yard!)Looked like a good thing to plan on seeing in the next few days. We then found a quaint little restaurant with chairs and tables that had probably been bought at a garage sale on Saturday (do they even have garages, in this place with all apartments and no garages?) but they were so cute! Along with the non-matching tables. And the waiter who said we were "ordering a very big meal." It was lovely, however. And we WERE in Madrid.

Chapter 9: Thys is the Thyssen-Bergomesun Museum

We were looking at this museum, and figured we'd have to find out how to pronounce it, so that we wouldn't seem like out-of-towners. Ha! But, just as we thought, it started with "thys". We were going to be fine. So, as it had at the D'Orsay, it started out with paintings that began in the 1300's and ended with rather modern paintings (ie. Ray Lichtenstein: the one that Grace had written about in 4th grade, for Mrs. Hardy's class). Now, it's already been 5 days, and I'm beginning to forget which museums that we saw, but one thing that was important, again, was the Impressionists. This museum was filled with them, too!

Since in was Buenos Noches (or Christmas Eve), the Thyssen shut down at 3:00 and kicked us out. Grace had reserved a spot at another cozy spot. First, we walked into a great little restaurant that she said she had booked, took us into a lovely dining room. But because of the language barrier, the servers were very confused that we wanted to order the Plato las Dias, and had the only female in the joint come up to us and explain that we weren't allowed to order that, but since we were unable to understand what they were telling us, they were unable to explain the same, they'd let us order it. But they weren't going to be too pleasant about it! Luckily, like every other plate in Spain, it was delicious.

It was raining quite a bit, now, and so we got to FINALLY make contact with all of the people we had been promising to write to, talk to and tell that we were in the midst of our trip. It was a small apartment, but it was cozy, especially with Grace playing Christmas music on her iTunes Radio. It was also good to be hearing about Spain from her point-of-view, and hearing about her plans for the next year.