Friday 22 june - SdC to Madrid and halfway to Paris

Slept in till 615 and Maureen was already up! Had a bite to eat for breakfast in our hotel cafe and they called us a cab. Trip to the Aeropuerto was quick. The Airport in SdC is quite nice and let lots of the morning sunshine in. Very spacious and white. The lines were moving pretty quickly but I had the bumper car lady behind me who, even though there was no where to go, kept bumping into me to get me to move up, all the way onto the plane and right up to my seat!
 Economy class on Liberia Air means that you have NO leg room. We left on time 935 am. The flight was good, smooth so wrote in my journal and took photos. had some nice iced tea and an hour and a half later we were in the Madrid Air port. I love the Madrid Airport! Rainbow colours and lots of space. Great!
 We bought our day pass metro ticket and caught the metro into town to the Atocha stop, went into the train station and checked our bags at the lockers, when we finally found them, where there is a permanent guard on duty. On the metro there was a lady on her cell phone trying to find a pen. She asked the lady next to her but her neighbor did not have one. I leaned across the aisle and loaned her mine. at the next stop a gentleman got on who was selling pens! I felt bad for him as he could have probably made a sale to the lady on the phone except for me so I bought a pen from him. It was actually a good deal.  We got off at the station closest to the Prada stop.
By 1230 we had found a nice cafe and ordered veggie paella. We figured out our plan for the afternoon. I wanted to to the art gallery, the Thiessen, across from the Prada and Maureen thought that she might go into the retiro park that she had not been to. We decided to meet back at the star-bucks just down the street from the restaurant at around 430 pm which would give us plenty of time to get to the train station for our train departure at 610 pm. the Paella was great. I should have started eating that a lot sooner but I don't recall having seen it on any menus that I had looked at.
There was a group of gentlemen just four or five tables away that were all carrying various instruments. A band? We hoped that they would play but it turned out that they were there for dinner.
 I headed off to the Thiessen.
All along the streets surrounding the Prada were large banners advertising Hopper ( I don't think I know who Hopper is ?) at the Thiessen and I had heard that there were some impressionist paintings there so I was excited to get there.
It was hot out, above 34 I think ,so I stayed in the shade as much as I could on the 4 block walk to the art gallery. There were the usual vendors with thier tables on the sidewalks and a few brave souls dressed up and being statues. they were in the shade too. As I passed one table that I thought was selling crazy wigs the head in the middle screamed at me. I nearly jumped out of my skin! There was a small crowd of people laughing at my reaction and once my heart slowed down to abut 200 beats per minute, I laughed too. Good entertainment that.  I hoped that he had an ambulance standing by for those poor souls who had heart attacks when he yelled at them. I gave the poor fellow sitting under the table in plus 34 weather one euro.
I was about one block away form the Thiessen and was glad when I got inside to the air-conditioning. I went and saw the Hopper show first as the girls at the front desk said that it was larger and would take more time to go through that the few impressionist paintings that they had.

Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an american artist with a realist and cinematic painting style that influenced many peers and brought him fame and fortune. He had travelled in Europe, including Spain. I really enjoyed his show but pictures were not allowed so just bought a few postcards of his work. the pictures here are free domain ones that found on the internet.
 I then went through the rest of the art gallery. It started with the renaissance about the l200's up through the 1300's and 1400's. mostly religious as who else could pay for paintings except for royalty. (where were the impressionists?) I saw paintings and sculptures from the 1500's and 1600's, the 1700's and the 1800's then came the impressionist paintings that were there. Monet, Manet, Vincent, Gaugin, Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec. I have decided that I like Lautrec, not all but some.
The young girl was right they only had a few but they were lovely. Dali was next how fun and some Picasso ( not my favorite). Then up the stairs to the religious 12 century. I actually found a lovely piece  a  Van Eyk painting diptych of two statues one of Mary and one of the angel announcing. it was lovely. the annunciation. you can look it up on line as they would not let me take a photo so I did not. So honest. then back to the impressionists until it was time for me to go.
 I got back to star bucks at around 345 and sat in the middle of the restaurant waiting for Maureen. I had an iced tea and wrote out post cards. I waited there until 430 and when I finally got up to go back to the train station Maureen called out from the far corner of the restaurant where she had been the whole time. It was too hot to go to the park so she came in and sat in the corner thinking that I would come in and walk all over the entire place looking for her. Oh well, always look for Maureen in corners where her back is protected from the big bad world.
We made our way back to the train station, retrieved our backpacks and still had some time to peruse the few shops that were there. We found our coach with no problem and the conductor took our passports saying that we would get them back when we disembarked and returned the key to the room that we had booked.  The train left exactly on time.
We checked out our room. It had everything we needed. I wrote in my journal and took some photos. At 7 we went to the lounge car, had some pre dinner wine from cute small wine bottles, and watched the scenery go by.  there was a group of young girls travelling, maybe a school group who had a difficult time deciding just what they wanted. chips, pop or the young waiter behind the counter?
At 8 went into dinner which was pretty nice. Omelet with salad and white asparagus. we were seated with an English couple, Jill and Mike, from Gatehouse, just by Newcastle in northern England. He is in soccer and she is a medical receptionist and they have been married just two years. they met in Tuscany, have been to Granada, Seville, and Madrid all by train. they were a lot of fun.  We chatted and drank red wine and watched the scenery go by. We had the late sitting so were not too worried abut having to leave the dining car in a rush.
I saw those lovely round trees with the round shadows again. so fun. Of course it looked different from the last time I had seen them when were leaving Madrid to go to Oviedo, as it was evening and not noon.  At noon the shadows were directly under the trees and it looked so cool. Just like paintings that I have seen and thought that they were a made up landscape because nothing looks like that in real life.
Back to our roomette and the conductor had made our beds. Maureen took the top. There was much laughter and giggling and taking of photos with small bottles of wine and fans but my batteries must have died and I didn't notice til I went to play them back they were not there. Sad as who doesn't want to be reminded of two tipsy old ladies with the giggles acting silly. After that we tried to sleep. It was so hot in the little room. I kept waking up in a sweat and poor Maureen on the top bunk was cooking.