Lori's Travels

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.

Saturday was our day at sea, traveling between Riga and Stockholm, with no stop in a port. Plus we returned to the Central European time zone, so we set our clocks back an hour Friday night. So it was a leisurely day at sea, during which we could sleep in and do whatever we wanted with no deadlines or schedule. We independently walked the ship, ate, worked out in the fitness center, read, listened to music, and napped, whenever we wanted.

It was sunny and in the 60s all day. Various freighter ships could be seen in the distance, each traveling a different direction.

In the evening, we met together to celebrate the cruise by opening our last bottle of champagne. Then we went to our 8:30 dinner in the Reflections dining room. We also had to tag our luggage with disembarkment group numbers and get it ready to be picked up by 11 p.m. Tomorrow, we’re scheduled to disembark at 9:05 a.m. and then pick up our luggage in the Stockholm cruise terminal on shore.