Puck and I have been tucking ourselves in bed around 2 AM here, but we’ve been getting up late too. Today, we crawled out of bed in time for breakfast, and then we took our tired legs back to central Madrid so we could go to the last day of the Renaissance Portraits exhibit at the Prado Museum. They had portraits from 1400-1600 and from museums around the world. I had to take a few breaks to make it through all the rooms of portraits, and it was amazing to see in person some of the paintings that I’ve only seen online or in books. There were a multitude of languages in the crowded exhibit too–German, Italian, Portuguese, English, Spanish…
A brief run-down on our adventure in Madrid the last few days. Puck and I have had a good time so far in Spain, though our feet and legs are tired. We’re really getting the hang of the metro and have seen 1 apartment that interested us so far. Be warned…the apartments here in Madrid are very small for our price range (typical for a large city). Still, it is a livable space. Puck and I found converters yesterday (we can’t find the ones we packed) and a French press (Puck is delighted). We love the breakfasts at the hotel too–open until 10:30 AM with lots of yummy treats.
Our first day in Madrid! Puck is checking e-mail in our hotel room.
We also ate in a little bullfighting restaurant called the Green and Gold (Verde y Oro) on our first day walking around Madrid.
There are bullfighting photos, paintings and memorabilia on the walls behind us.
And here's the bull.
Today we picked up a mobile phone, and we are hopefully close to getting an apartment. Tonight after looking at a couple of places, we wandered down to the Prado Museum and by the National Library where we ran into 2 of the grad students from the UCDavis Spanish department who are home visiting family before going back to California for the academic year. What an amazing coincidence! We sat in a cafe across the street afterward and had coffee and a flan-like dessert before heading back to the hotel to soak our tired feet.
We are meeting with the owner of the apartment we like on Monday to hopefully work out a contract. The flat will be near the Plaza de España and the Royal Palace. It is only 30 square meters, but it is near some pretty plazas and parks. It is a little removed from a main thoroughfare, across the street from a police station and has a doorman named Manuel. So it feels very safe. Keep your fingers crossed that it all works out for the best.
We walked by the Palace this afternoon and wandered through the gardens. You can see both in these photos.
It was very pleasant in the gardens.
Tomorrow we’re planning to go to an exposition of Renaissance Portraits at the Prado Museum. The exposition ends tomorrow night. We made it to Madrid just in time to see it.
Originally written September 1, 2008.
Puck and I are officially on our way. We are having to take entirely different flight paths due to some ticket changes. He flew out at noon, and I head out at 3 PM. But we’ll both arrive in Madrid within an hour of each other.
Originally written September 2, 2008.
We have both arrived in Spain safely and made it to the hotel with all of our bags! It was really good to see Puck after a looong 24 hours, but all went relatively smoothly. It looked for awhile like 1 of my bags hadn’t arrived with the others from my flight, but while I was waiting to talk to the luggage people our belt started moving again. It was lucky that the bag had been delayed because it turned out all of Puck’s checked luggage arrived on my flight. Yikes! I had to haul it all to a different terminal, but a couple of nice fellows helped me push it part of the way. Fortunately Puck came over to where he could see me through the doors, and I showed him I had all the bags.
The day for the big move is approaching all too quickly. Puck and I packed almost all of our belongings into a 10×20 storage unit and left California mid-August. Some of our friends generously gave us a closet in their house to fill with all of our more temperature-sensitive items (like CDs, videos, photo albums, etc.), and we found temporary homes a few other items. We were a little sad to leave the duplex we had rented for five years, and we’ll be lucky to find such a nice place and landlord (our neighbor) on our return. Still, we were excited to get on the way.
The Road Trip
The road trip home was pretty fun if a bit hot and sweaty at times (unloading and reloading the luggage on top of the car). Our friend Cindy flew out to make the drive back with us before she headed off to Indiana to start her doctoral program there, and she has some photos you can see here.
The Grand Canyon
We stopped at the Grand Canyon to catch a sunset and a sunrise–which was lovely since it was my first time to see it. Many of the tourists failed to cue in on the fact that you don’t just go to see the sun rise or set but to see the way that this affects the shadows and colors of the Canyon itself. This meant that at sunrise people cleared out early and missed some of the best parts of the show!
The sunrise was gorgeous, and a cloud graced the scene to add its special touch.
Lovely, but now the view in the other direction...
The photos can't quite capture the shades of color.
I love the effects of the light on the canyon.
The light spreads...
A little more...
Light and shadows...
And the sun was high in the sky.
The canyon with the sun high in the sky.
Shakti did much better on the trip back to Oklahoma than on the trip to California, but she didn’t eat a lot. It was a lot of fun walking around with her on the rim of the Grand Canyon, though we wore her out with our 2-mile stroll.
We had an enjoyable walk with Shakti along the rim.
Aren't they adorable? Shakti was much admired and loved on by other tourists.
Back Home
The 7 nieces and 1 nephew from my side of the family plus my siblings all came in for the weekend to celebrate Mom and Dad’s 45th anniversary and to see Puck and me before we go. Normal family joy and chaos ensued. We also made a couple of trips up to Tulsa to visit Puck’s sisters, Mom and one of our nieces. Puck made some delicious Bulgogi for the family following his Aunt Thim’s recipe.
Shakti
Shakti has settled in nicely with Mom, Dad and their dogs. She loves playing with Mikey (black lab mix) and Casper (little white terrier mix), and she keeps trying to snuggle up to Clark (their Rottweiler and her old beau from when we lived in Oklahoma). She adores Grandma and Papa (what the grandkids call my parents)–following Papa everywhere he goes just like she used to do when she was a puppy. We enjoyed the walks with all of the dogs in the country every afternoon and seeing Shakti so happy in the new environment.
Shakti adores the daily walks in the country.
Shakti chasing Casper. Don't worry! She never catches him. 🙂
Finding Old Friends
As often happens before a move, I have also been hunting down and contacting old friends. Going forward always makes me reflect on the past and curious about where people are, what they are doing. The Internet has transformed our world in so many ways that often go unnoticed. It is so much easier to find friends, though sometimes it depends on the uniqueness of the names.