Back to Madrid and Home

Bullet Train Valencia to Madrid

Alvaro overlooking Cathy


Champagne to Celebrate Negative Test

Dr. administering COVID Tests to allow us to return to US

Fabulous Confit (maybe) of Artichokes

White Asparagus

Turbo

Cheese Cake and Amaretto


Crowds Celebrate Madrid beats Liverpool in Soccer


We took the bullet train from Valencia back to Madrid where we returned to The Principal Hotel and checked in. We were given a suite overlooking the plaza once again. We didn’t realize it at the time but there was a major Soccer game Madrid vs Liverpool. The whole town was in a state of excitement.

 

We did a preliminary pack for our trip home tomorrow and awaited the doctor for our Covid test required for our return to US. It is absurd, the US has far more COVID cases than anywhere else in the world. And the US doesn’t require people to take a test to fly domestically. It is all COVID theater. The Doctor came to our hotel and administered a rapid test. It was different the ones we have used in the US. He said we were negative within 1 minute of swabbing us. We drank Champagne to celebrate. About an hour we received an official form email to us from the Doctor stating our status. Iberia Airlines had sent us a link in Spanish telling us to upload the forms. We went to the concierge who assisted us in the upload. Late that night we received an email from Iberia saying there was a problem with the forms. We decided to just say screw it and let them sort it at the Airport. Hopefully we will get on the plane and return.

 

We went back to Roostiq for our last dinner. It is an exceptional restaurant. It is like the very best California restaurant but at Spanish prices. Everything was delicious. This is a must eat at restaurant in Madrid, a very short walk from our hotel. Once again we were amazed that people sit and talk at dinner. They aren't all on their iPhones. The Soccer game started at 9pm and ended about 11:30. The square outside our hotel filled with thousands of jubilant fans (Madrid won), chanting way into the night. It was quite a scene.

 

Assuming Iberia fixes our documents, we will leave at noon. We loved our trip to Madrid and will definitely return.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pastrami in Madrid

Image
Masked on the Subway Drinks in  Chueca, thinking of Jaimie Mezze Spread Thickly sliced Pastrami  Today was a continuation of getting over jet lag. We started on a quest to get my SIM card. iPhone have dual Sims so I thought (incorrectly as it found out) that I had a an empty slot for a 2 nd   sim card. When I switched from AT&T to Spectrum, Spectrum didn’t use the eSim on the phone but actually installed a SIM Card. That meant that if I installed the Spanish SIM I would loose my California phone number while we were here, and I didn’t want to do that. Long story short we put the SIM in Cathy’s phone. This took a long time at the store, and it was frustrating. Oh well. We did accomplish the other two items on our agenda. I successfully withdrew money from an ATM machine and took the Subway back to the Hotel.   Cathy stayed behind and I took a long walk into the Salamanca. This is definitely the place where the rich live and shop. It was a very fancy area filled wi...
Read more

Pick Pocketed (Again), Best Paella

Image
Park atop the Parking Garage with  species indigenous to Valencia Face inside of Statue Performance Arts Center Interior Main Performance Space Reflections of light off of broken tiles Water Features and Cinema Cinema Inside the Garden atop Garage Fabulous Garlic Shrimp Best Paella Yet! Let’s get the worst part out of the way first, and add some lessons learned. A little background first, when we were last in London, Cathy got pickpocketed. We have no idea how they accomplished it, but as we were walking, we realized her purse was open, her wallet was missing. It was amazing how professional it was.  Because we shared the same American Express and Visa cards all our credit cards needed to be cancelled. In addition, Cathy lost all her id’s, Driver’s License, Insurance Cards, etc. When we arrived back in the States, we got new credit cards and made sure that we had separate numbers so that if one of us ever lost their cards the other one will still have a working card.  ...
Read more

Paella in the Albufera

Image
  Hoisting the Paella Pans Lake Albufera, where they grow Bomba Rice Rice Liquor Paella Inspection Paella Passed the Inspection! Perfect Patatas Bravas Why can't we take Parsifal out with us? White Asparagus Beautiful Modernist Style Market Unusually Shaped Tomatoes, wonder what they taste like The Water Tribunal  When we awakened, we asked ourselves, why are we staying in this hotel? The room was nice, we had a private patio, but we thought the service sucked, and the bed was hard. We had to decide if we wanted to switch to a better hotel. The obvious answer was Hell Yes! We quickly secured a reservation at the Westin Valencia, a luxury hotel in every way. We packed up and took our luggage to our much nicer new digs. Since it was only 11:30am we checked in but couldn’t go to our rooms, which hadn’t been cleaned yet.  We then taxied to The Water Court (Tribunal de Las Aguas). The Tribunal meets outside the Door of the main Cathedral, every Thursday at noon, keeping a...
Read more