Author: lori977987136

 

This mornng, we left for Vaughan Town, the English immersion school taking place in the small town of Belmonte. After checking out, I walked with another “Anglo” from the hotel at 9:30 a.m. to meet the bus taking us there, which was waiting for the group a few blocks away. It was another clear, sunny and cool morning. There, we met some of the other Anglos who had been at the tapas reception the night before, some of the Spaniard students, and the two Vaughan staff members who are coordinating the session. Weput our luggage on the bus, introduced ourselves to the Spaniards, and got on the bus, pairing up with a Spaniard to sit with for the first part of the 2.5-hour trip.

I sat with Robert, a marketing entrprenuer who owns a successful, growing business. As we talked, we drove through a dry countryside that was mostly flat with some rolling hills and small towns every once in a while. At the 1.5-hour mark, we stopped at a gas station with rest stop and had a half hour break where we could buy drinks and use the restrooms. Then it was back on the bus, this time sitting with a new Spaniard. This speaking partner was Juan Vicente, a software programmer.

At the end of the trip, at 12:30, we arrived at the Palacio del Infante Don Juan Manuel Hotel Spa in the very small town of Belmonte. I hope to describe the town more in tomorrow’s blog. The hotel is built in a very old monastery, with archeologically-dug monastery rooms on display below the ground floor.

After providing our passports to the front desk and stashing our luggage in a big room, we started the first half of an orientation given by the Vaughan staff members. At 2 p.m., we went into the hotel’s restaurant and ate lunch. Two Anglos and two Spaniards at each table, with only English allowed the whole week.

Then, our individual rooms were assigned, we got our luggage, and siesta time! I first walked around the hotel grounds to take pictures, then took an hour’s siesta in my huge, quiet room! Very nice!

 

After the siesta, we finished the orientation and then held two one-one sessions with the Spaniards. Dinner was at 9 p.m. I was really tired since I hadn’t slept well last night. So right after dinner ended at 10, I returned to my room to finish this blog posting and go to bed.

Well, I didn’t get my lost luggage delivered yesterday. It wasn’t delivered until 3:30 p.m. today. So my nice lost luggage man yesterday wasn’t telling me the whole truth. But not having luggage didn’t stop me from doing some sightseeing in Madrid.

After a pretty good night’s sleep despite not having PJs and toiletries, I got up this morning and enjoyed the hotel’s buffet breakfast. It was another sunny day in Madrid, although it started out cool, in the 30s. But even that cool temperature didn’t feel too bad, because it’s dry. I drank lots of water and then set out on the subway to go sightseeing in central Madrid.

I started out in Puerta del Sol, one of Madrid’s many plazas. 

I walked around, enjoying the pedestrian-only streets and main thoroughfares.

Then I reached Parque del Retiro, or Retiro Park. Being a Saturday morning in the sunshine, lots of people were out walking and rowing in the park. Lots of house sparrows, pigeons, and Eurasian magpies active too.

After exploring for a couple of hours, I headed back to the hotel to check for my luggage. It was a no-show until later, but when it was finally delivered, I happily took a shower and changed clothes. Just in time for the 5 p.m. tapas reception for the English-speaking immersion school volunteers at El Balandro, a tapas bar that was a 15-minute walk from my hotel.

At the reception, there were about 30 anglos destined for three different school sessions in different towns, plus three staff members from Vaughan Town, the immersion school. We enjoyed Spanish tapas, wine (both paid for by Vaughan Town), and getting to know our fellow volunteers. Most are American, with a few Brits mixed in. After a couple hours of socializing and getting the details for the week ahead, we headed back to our hotels. I celebrated having PJs and then hit the sack.

 

Today I left cold, ice, and snow behind in Seattle to fly to sunny Spain. The first leg of my journey, walking from my house to the nearby bus stop, was the most harrowing because of the ice on the sidewalk. A broken wrist from a fall would have been a crappy way to start. But thankfully that didn’t happen. The bus was on time, light rail was great, and I got to Seatac Airport early.

The boarding time for my flight was delayed because the plane arrived late and needed cleaning. So we got a late start with no promises to make up the time. But 10 hours later, after 3 meals, 3 movies, and a very smooth flight, we were in Amsterdam. I hustled through the airport, noting with interest that they had a red Tesla Model 3 on display in the duty-free shop area, being polished by a young woman. Passport control was a breeze, so I arrived at my gate for the flight to Madrid just as the main cabin passengers were boarding, about 25 minutes after landing in Amsterdam. Perfect timing!

Two hours later I arrived in the smallish Madrid airport, under a blue blue sky. But my checked bag didn’t make the Amsterdam connection and wasn’t in baggage claim. A very nice man in the lost baggage office looked on his computer and said it would arrive on the next flight in 2 hours. After taking down all my information, he arranged for it to be delivered to my hotel.

I navigated the Madrid subway and then walked in the sunshine the last 15 minutes to my hotel, the Infanta Mercedes. It’s not a Hilton, but works well for me.

Since I was bleary-eyed from the flight, I decided to skip dinner at a restaurant. After looking at my room, I walked back to a grocery store I had previously passed and bought a couple things to eat in my room. 

While waiting for my luggage to be delivered, I scoped out my sightseeing plans for Saturday in central Madrid.

 

Just a short time until my English-teaching and bird-watching trip to Spain starts.

Here’s a map of the locations where I’ll be staying –

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NaJgNdGKe0i-5O5S40HxvR6i608fWOIj&usp=sharing

This is what I’m leaving behind –

This morning, the Serenade of the Seas returned to Stockholm. When we got up about 6:30 a.m. it was sailing through the Swedish Archipelago on glassy smooth water, with the sun up and another beautiful day in store. We ate breakfast about 7:30 and it was very hard to find a place to sit because there were so many people eating early in preparation for disembarking.

The ship docked shortly before 8:00. We had put our large luggage out the night before to be collected, so we only had our small carry-on bags with us. We were in group #19 to disembark. We assembled in the assigned area about 8:30 to wait for our group number to be called. But we didn’t have long to wait. Within 5-10 minutes, our number was called and we left the ship. Walking into the cruise terminal, we found all our bags right away in our group #19 area. So we walked outside and asked for a large taxi from the long lines of waiting cabs. We were in the cab and driving into Stockholm before 9 a.m., sooner than we had expected. The cab driver quickly delivered us to the Hilton at Slussen again.

Our rooms weren’t ready so early, so we left the luggage with Hilton’s bell captain and went upstairs to the executive lounge to get something to drink. Then we walked to a not-busy Gamla Stan and beyond to Norrmalm. The sun was very warm; the high was in the 80s. We did some souvenir shopping and returned to Gamla Stan, where we stopped for coffee and pastries at a shop with outdoor tables in the square. We watched the volume of tourists grow gradually. Then we walked back to the Hilton and found that our three rooms were ready.

After resting and recharging, and watching some of the World Cup final match in the executive lounge, we all met in the lounge again and went out to dinner about 6:45. We walked to the Italian restaurant we had eaten at before we went on the cruise, Da Luigi. We were lucky to get a table outside on the pedestrian-only street, where we watched the people walk by. Both the restaurant and the street were very busy. Then we returned to the hotel, where we turned in early  in order to be able to get up very early for our flights home tomorrow.