Day Minus 3 to the Camino – Jet Lag & Madrid in the Evening

The first day of traveling east to Europe has always been the most difficult for me. The best I can do, sleep wise on the long cross Atlantic flight to Madrid is a “cat nap” at best.  Flying coach simply doesn’t afford the necessary space I need to get comfortably settled to induce solid sleep.  Fortunately, customs was a snap this morning and the taxi driver, Ana, was very pleasant. Checking in at our hotel was also very positive in that Raul, the day manager was very welcoming and accommodating. He is a very charming and friendly person. Expectations is something I constantly set for myself. I set an expectation today to stay awake til this evening. During the day we were to take a city bus to Madrid’s city center.  I was also going to once and for all settle the issue I have with my iPad Mini and downloading Apple Apps such as Facebook and Skype.  More on that in a later blog. However, for now, just know that I’ve been getting my butt kicked the last few days trying to get past the issue of not remembering my Apple ID password……. As for my expectations, we never made it to Madrid’s city center. Although my Spanish comprehension is passable and my Spanish speaking is more at the Iberian Neanderthal level, I never was confident enough to get on bus #27 with my wife and daughter. Instead we made a scouting trip to the train station a block away from the hotel to ensure we were confident of where we need to be tomorrow morning to catch the 0800 train to Burgos.  By then it was nearly noon and we were really feeling the effects of jet lag.  We struggled back to our hotel room and crashed.  After a near 4 hour sleep I awoke ready to tackle the Apple ID password issue.  My expectations were crushed two and a half hours later when I believe I made things worse with Steve Jobs’ boys.  So my high expectations of my spanish language skills and lack of finesse with Apple products brought me back to earth thinking of the Camino and how I needed to simply “let it be.” We left the hotel to look for a place to eat and to simply let Madrid come to us.  We walked a few blocks and found an inviting neighborhood Pub.  It had all the look and feel of a warm local Pub where people can stop by on the way home for a beer or meet with friends for drinks, food, and friendly conversations. Our waiter, who was the only waiter in the Pub so he was very busy, is a native of Madrid.  His name is Angel Jimenez Sanchez.  Nancy and Andrea ordered “vino tinto” which is red wine in English. I ordered the Spanish beer Mahou.  As is typical in  Spanish bars, when one orders drinks, the waiter will also bring a portion of the house tapas to go with the drinks.  In this case we each received a small slice of Spanish tortilla over sliced crusty bread along with marinated olives.  Delicious!

Now we were finally relaxing!  After awhile we ordered the Jamon Iberico de Bellota and the Chorizo Iberico de Bellota.  Absolutely delicious.  Nancy and Andrea had two more vinto tintos and I had a second Mahou ceberza.  We followed that with a 1.5 Liter bottle of water.  Have to stay hydrated!