May 12, 1998 Flying over the Atlantic Ocean Originally we were told the boats leave each week. Possibly due to my misunderstanding Diego, our first contact at AEI, he may have meant every two weeks. We had planned for a boat to embark on the 17th. but then when I had all the paper work near completion, I was told 24th. Yesterday, a little worried about not have yet received the bill of lading which will be required by customs to pick up my motorcycle, I called up the shipping company. I talked to Guillermo, who had been the most helpful in the past. He told me that the motorcycles shipped on May 6th, 2 weeks later than normal. The N.D. (or Nincompoop density) in both Argentina and Chile is low relative to rest of Latin America, so I can only give them the benefit of doubt that it was for a very good reason why our motorcycles didn't ship two weeks earlier when they where scheduled to. If this was not the case I would imagine... "Oh, we have these two motorcycles left over, which won't fit now... just stick them on the next ship." Our TWA flight left for New York at 1:20pm, and then left New York for Madrid at 6:45pm. May 13, 1998 Madrid, Spain - {Hotel Oporto} At 7:12am our plane crossed the edge of the first beams of sunlight and the plane was flooded in a bright red for a soft flash as we cruised over a sea of clouds at thirty five thousand feet. Our plane landed at 8:30am in Madrid. We deplaned the 767, and as we walked down the jet way I could hear a loud Spaniard speaking in Spanish to another. Hearing this loud foreign language was an abrasive to my ears. I have enjoyed the past three weeks hearing only my native tongue. This loud Spaniard probably felt as I did three weeks earlier, blithe to be free to speak my own language as loud and as freely as desired. We picked up some pesetas at the numerous ATM's in the airport. The tourist information desk handed out beautiful maps of Madrid which I picked up, and asked how to get down town. I called up hotel Oporto, making reservations, and getting directions. I feel like my Spanish comprehension has skyrocketed relative to listening to that Argentinean accent which I found to be the most difficult for me to comprehend in South America. We took a nice bus from the airport to plaza del Colon where we then picked up a taxi to take us the rest of the way to the hotel. Unfortunately, our hotel was near the congress building where the President of Spain happened to be speaking at that time. The streets surrounding this area were blocked off from car access, and had presidential guards with automatic weapons and bullet proof vests posted every ten meters. We walked into a cordoned off area where a police asked where we were going. I told him we were headed to our hotel which was here and he let us pass. The drive through town was nice. The streets and buildings remind me more of other European cities rather than of Latin America. Beautiful old stone carved buildings, statues, fountains, gardens, etc. are at every turn of the corner. Modern buildings are built with artistic touches. There is a different breed of driver here. There is a calmness in driving style I've grown unfamiliar with while travelling through Latin America. Monday we had gotten little sleep packing, and wrapping up ends late into the night. Tuesday, both Sharon and I only slept about an hour on the plane. We were feeling pretty tired, and made the fatal mistake of lying down on our bed when we arrived at the hotel, not waking up for another 5 hours. This is the first time we encountered jet lag on our trip. Spain is GMT+1, or 7 hours forward of Chicago. May 14, 1998 Madrid, Spain - {Hotel Oporto} Last night, I fell asleep around 12:30am, we were awake from around 3:00am until 6:00am, We tried to get up around 9:00am, but fell back to sleep, and then finally got out of bed around 12:30pm struggling with jet lag. We had a menu del dia at a nearby restaurant. Mine consisted of a gazpacho which was a cold fresh tomato, garlic and salt bisque with cucumber, onion, and garlic crouton toppings. My main course was thin slices of a delicious steak tenderloin with french fries. Sharon had a cream garlic base seafood soup which included mussels, calamari, tuna, and other unknown sea creatures. Her main course was a chicken breast and french fries. The set menu came with a liter of red house wine which came in a rectangular glass decanter. The meal included an espresso (called cafe solo here) and desert which was a delicious raspberry topped cheese cake for me, and a tiramisu for Sharon. total cost was p1500 each ($10). All the restaurants we stopped in had some sort of "menu del dia". Like in Latin America, it's by far the most economical way to eat. Afterwards, we went to the Prado museum which is the main art museum of Madrid. They have a lot of Rubens, Goya, Velazquez. Many of the paintings are commissioned paintings in the museum and are of royal persona and of religious scenes which after a while began to get a little old.... After the Prado, we walked through the botanical gardens situated on the South side of the museum. It's a large open air cultivated and manicured area that grows plants from all around the world. Their are pathways throughout and a plethora of fountains interspersed. After Sharon woke up from her nap around 10:15pm, we went out for dinner which was the normal Spanish dining time. We stopped at a food bar which are common dinner places. As with many other restaurants in town, The walls were lined with whole proscuito hams with hoofs still attached. In this small restaurant, I counted 200 of these hanging here. On their menu, they had a plate of thin sliced proscuito for $11. At that price, I figure they have a quarter of a million dollars worth of proscuito hanging from the walls. We later walked by two more places that had even more. According to my guide book, Spain consumes 27 million of these each year, which is around 1 per person each year. The best hams come from pigs free ranging in oak forests. The highest rated hams being a cinco jotas or 5 J's (JJJJJ), are said to have fed off of nothing but acorns. We walked towards the Puerto del Sol (or door of the sun) which is considered the center of Spain where all of the roads end at mile marker zero. The roads radiate from this area. The buildings are lit up, and to me resembled an opera house. Each balcony window looked like a balcony in an opera and was lit up in uniform theatrical style. A few blocks before we came upon the Puerto del Sol, we walked by an intersection with cars parked along the sides. As we stood their deciding which direction to head, we spotted a man in his late twenties inconspicuously walking up to cars and trying the door handles. It was unbelievable how brash this guy was with so many people walking around this busy area. He obviously did this often. He appeared to be stoked up on adrenaline or some other upper as he walked fast between cars, and constantly looked about. While both Sharon and I find the Spanish spoken here very easy to understand, more often than not, we run into people who speak with the Castilian lisp which isn't really a lisp, but just happens to be the accent of the area. I went into a shop to buy a pastry. The female clerk said "thieto bentay thinko... Grathiath", when normally I might hear "ciento veinte cinco.... Gracias" (125...thanks) I couldn't help chuckling afterwards. May 15, 1998 Madrid, Spain - {Hotel Oporto} Thyssen-Bornemisza museum. Had the best and most interesting collection of 13th, 14th, and 15th century paintings I've ever seen. Both Sharon and I enjoyed this museum more than the Prado. The collection of European paintings span from the 13th to the 20th century, Similar to the Prado most of the early paintings paint religious scenes, and then shifting towards a majority being portraits by the 16th century. About the time when photography exists is when the realistic portrait paintings trickle off and impressionism takes off, and then surrealism, cubism, and other modern art styles... It's Obvious photography has had a huge impact on painting. They had a Salvador Dali I liked, just because it's so weird. "Dream caused by a bee flying around a pomegranate seconds before awakening. " is the title. It's a picture of a giant open pomegranate hovering in the air over the sea. Leaping out of the pomegranate is a giant large mouth orange fish. Leaping out of the fish's mouth is a roaring tiger who seems to have partially swallowed the tail of another tiger who has it's claws extended and looks as though he's about to pounce on a beautiful naked woman who is naively lying outstretched, possibly napping, partially hovering over a rock slab. However in between the pouncing tiger and the woman is a rifle with bayonet which appears to be caressing the inside of her right arm. In the back ground is one of Dali's elephants with outrageously long stork legs walking over the calm sea while carrying a stone obelisk on it's back. Next to the woman is a bee flying around a normal size, but hovering pomegranate which apparently is the cause of this dream according to the title of the painting. It's appeal to me is it's bizarreness. May 16, 1998 Madrid, Spain - {Hotel Oporto} About 4:00pm, we got up, and decided it was about time for breakfast, this being the hour that most restaurant close their kitchens from serving lunch. Jet lag had kept us awake until 6:00am where we read one of the books we had loaded up on the palmtop computer, "A Girl of the Limberlost". We walked towards the Plaza del Sol, and stopped in a "Museo del Jamon" which is a large food bar that serves primarily proscuito sandwiches, and delicious baked breads. Like last night, I had two proscuito, cheese and tomato on croissant sandwiches with some draft beer (San Miguel?). Sharon had what was called a potato sandwich which was like slice of potato quiche eaten with bread. We walked to the Plaza Mayor, which is a large square flat cobblestone plaza line with arched in tourist stores, and then later walked around the pedestrian only streets which comprises a downtown shopping district. After a while, we sat down in an outdoor cafe sipped on a beer. We've been looking for a grocery store since we arrived with no luck. Near our hotel appears to be a little store front with groceries in the window, however it has never been open. Sharon got an idea that the giant department store in Puerta del Sol might have a super market inside. She was right, there was a rather large one in the basement. We picked up some breakfast and dinner. The butcher was very popular. Even though they had four butchers working, I drew ticket number 97, while the red LED sign said 62. Meanwhile, we did some other shopping. The butcher here has a large selection of proscuito, salamis. When my number came up, I asked the butcher,for the best proscuito in all of Spain. His composure changed, and with much pride and confidence, he declared a particular one he had was the best one in all of Spain. Twice I asked the name, however his answer was so long that I lost it in the translation. I asked for 50grams, enough for Sharon and I to taste it. that nearly cost $6. Buying this stuff in Spain where proscuito is cheap, this one cost $55 per pound! proscuito tasting: Sharon tasted currents fat tasted like a rich creamy parmesan and fried bacon. texture was like a very soft beef jerky. the meat was translucent burgundy colored. 18,000 pesetas per kilo or $55 per pound Most excellent for a taste, but at that price, It'll have to be a special occasion. May 17, 1998 walked around town went to the flea market. bought a used 24mm lens walked through the park of buen retiro a lots of people there May 18, 1998 We bought a new SLR camera body. When we were back in the US, we developed our pictures, and really liked the slides we had shot with our SLR. We decided we would take two SLRs, one for slides and the other for prints. The manufacturer had a deal of $66 for a 28-80 zoom lens when purchased with the camera. Such a good deal, we picked one of these up also. Of course, we spent the afternoon walking around taking pictures trying out the new camera. May 19, 1998 Madrid, Spain - {Hotel Oporto} We went to San Lorenzo de El Escorial. It's monastery church and palace all combined in one built of granite up in the mountains. It was King Philips II gift to God for his assistance helping the Spanish defeat the French in the Battle of St Quintin on St Lawrence's Day in 1557. It was completed in 21 years using man powered wood cranes to lift the blocks into place. The interior granite blocks look like like new, showing no age. Currently the place is only used as a tomb for deceased royalty. Below the dome of the church under ground is a tomb where all of the Royalty was buried in beautiful baroque marble caskets set out for all tourists to see. The monastery-palace seems a bit stark, but was obviously created when Spain had a lot of money coming in from the Americas. The surrounding countryside and village was very picturesque. May 20-21, 1998 Toledo, Spain - {Pension Segovia} We rode Madrid's nice metro to the South bus terminal of the city. Unfortunately we wasted almost an hour on the subway due to first my mistaking a brown subway system for orange, and secondly for misunderstanding my guide book, and going to the wrong part of town. Our luggage had grown this past week in Madrid, and by the time we made it to the Southern bus terminal, Sharon was hot, frustrated and tired. After buying our p580 ($3.95) ticket to Toledo, we boarded a very nice luxury air conditioned bus which took us to our destination in 45 minutes, which was half the time we spent on the Madrid subway. We checked into a nice family run pension near the center of the old town, and got a roomy, odd shaped, 2nd floor corner room for p3000 ($20). This pension is hard to find in the maze of alleys that surround it, but is quiet and rich in character. Upon checking in, the owner offered us pop or beer as a welcoming refreshment. While we were eating lunch in the open air main plaza (Zocodover) a kid came up begging, however she forgot to take off her gold earrings before doing so. We figured it'll likely be slim pickings for her today. The other day, we saw a capable, well dressed, young (~18) looking beggar kneeling on the street, which is often the way here, with his hand out asking for money. A mongoloid child came up to him and gave him a coin, which made for an interesting message. In poorest parts of Peru where no tourists go, we saw no beggars, however in the richer areas especially touristy spots of every country, there seem to be swarms of capable beggars who know to target the tourists. In Chile, a woman came up to us with her 6 year old child asking for money for food for her kid. I suggested she give her kid the $2 ice cream bar she was sucking on. In the sort of triangular open air plaza, we sat at the McDonald's eating a late lunch. This was not our first choice of restaurants, however since it was 4;30, we couldn't find a restaurant that would still serve food. This small open air plaza we sat in, I eating my Big Mac combo, while Sharon ate her Happy Meal, was the same place where the Inquisition held public beheadings, public held bull fights, public addresses where given, and livestock was sold. This plaza which was the main plaza for a civilization that almost spanned the Western world, and likely would have ruled over, had the Spanish armada not been defeated by the English, now has among it's premier lure, a garrison of the fast food empire who's capital in Oakbrook, Illinois now spans the entire world. Toledo has been around since Roman times, and it's no wonder. It's strategically settled on a hill which is 3/4 surrounded by the Tajo river with fortified wall embankments. It was the capital of Spain for a while before Madrid. It's a beautiful very old city with narrow streets that wind up and down turn left here and dead end there. It's very nice for walking around when one just wants to get lost roaming with no particular place to go. The street layout has got that medieval feel. Apparently, Toledo has been known for centuries for it's sword making. Even though there isn't much need these days, they make some beautiful non-ornamental looking swords which I assume the main market is for tourists. Some look like they are for the Conan the barbarian wanna-be's, while others have Robin Hood's name inscribed in them. There are nice buccaneer swords, Samurai swords, beautiful Spanish conquistador swords, Charlemagne style swords, etc. At $75-$150 a sword, one really has to want one. At that price, I won't be swapping out my $3 Guatemalan machete which I have mounted on my motorcycle for those Genghis Kahn moments. For more practical tourists, just about every tourist shop has beautiful well made Toledo knives, which to me, appear to rival in quality those made by Henkels or Wustof at about half the cost. We visited the Cathedral of Toledo. The inside was likely the most intricate of any European church I have seen. Very cool... Lots of beautifully carved marble on the walls. There are more cherubs in here than a Hallmark store on Valentine's day. Apparently, Toledo was considered the seat of the church in Spain by the Vatican. For an extra 500 pesetas, one can see normally off limit areas of the church. We saw the monstrance in the church. When I saw it, I thought, that's a good name, for it. I'm not sure what it is other than some monstrosity made of 18kg of gold and 183kg of silver. It sort of resembles an ornate arched entrance of European church except inverted. Even though they were kicked out almost 500 years ago, one can see the Arab influence in the arch ways of some gates, windows, and many of the buildings. The buildings are a mixture of time, many of which the initial intention has certainly changed. One building may be as modern as a century old built connecting to another that might be over a millennium or two. Some buildings look like they've been abandoned for over a century, while in another, someone has moved in to what used to be a guard tower where one of the city gate portal was controlled from. -- Last night, a group of celebrating guys would walk by, under our window, through the narrow streets about every two hours, singing together very loud and happy until about 4am. I got up early, and walked around the town before most shops open, and the streets were quiet. I sat out in the zocodover plaza working on my journal on my palmtop. .. We had sort of tapas dinner at a nice bar that specialized in it's beer selection. Sharon drank Czech Budvar or Budweiser, not to be confused with the Anhueser-Busch product. I had some excellent La Trappe brew made by Trappist monks. With this, we had the most wonderful proscuito and cheese. The paper thin sliced proscuito had a wonderful English walnut flavor apparent in every bite. I enjoyed this more than our $55 per pound stuff we sampled the other day. While a dry sherry is the traditional drink to have with proscuito, this bar didn't have any. This meal was so good, we had a second round of everything which ended up being our dinner. Notes: With a thousand times the frequency of wild dandelions in the US midwest, the central Spain we have seen is covered with beautiful wild red poppies wild lavender, little yellow flowers, and little white flowers. With weeds this pretty, I would imagine no one wants to get rid of them. As a result, there are even more. --- Butter is not a common restaurant condiment in Spain. Often a small loaf, or large bun is set on the linen table clothes for people to eat off the table. Butter almost never comes with this. At one restaurant, I saw they would serve butter upon request, but at the cost of 150p ($1). One theory I heard is that cows are not common in central or Southern Spain. ... side note, they call butter Mantequilla or Manteca. In Latin America, Argentina was the only country to call butter Manteca, while all rest it was mantequilla. Andy Rooney material: Sharon's stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear that came in her McDonald's happy meal is wrapped in a plastic bag that has written on it in 28 European languages, "This toy has been safety-tested for children ages 3 and over... please retain this information for reference." Someone unfamiliar with the American legal system, and the potential lawsuits for things like coffee cups that don't warn of the hot nature of coffee, might think this warning a bit silly. It's a polyester stuffed bear... thompson@pdnt.com www - http://sdg.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~mag/Thompson Net-Tamer V 1.09 Palm Top - Registered