We Found the Stolen South American Gold!

Madrid is Like Paris

South American Plunder

Nice Gold Ensemble, love the hat

One of the Only Four Existing Mayan Codex (Books)

Vacation shopping

I hope Vino Generoso means "Generous Pours of Wine"

Cathy Inspecting the Wine at Angelina

Porcini Mushrooms with Eggs

We both suffered from Jet Lag again last night. It’s a bitch not being able to fall asleep, or if you fall asleep waking up an hour later. My cousin Sora sent me a great quote today: “The seventies are your Go-Go years, the eighties are your Slo-Go years, and the nineties are your No-Go years!” There might be some truth in that.

 

We sorted our clothing out in anticipation of our 3 day trip to Valencia tomorrow. We are going to take minimal belongings on the train. We will leave our luggage and extra clothes at the Hotel and will reclaim them when we return to Madrid.

 

We decided to visit the Museum of the Americas. On the way we drove past what I could have sworn was the Arc de Triumph. Unfortunately, this Arc de Triumph was constructed at the behest of Francisco Franco to commemorate the victory of Francoist troops in the 1936 Battle of Ciudad Universitaria, part of the Spanish Civil War. I was hoping it commemorated a victory of France.

 

The Museum of the Americas is a huge museum devoted to the interactions of Spain with the Americas. I guess I am a little prejudiced, but I think the exchange was Spain takes your gold and silver and in exchange we bring disease that kills most of your population, brings African Slaves to the Americas and subjugate you to our king. Colonialism was not Europe’s finest contribution to the world.

 

Here's advantage of being elderly, we were admitted free as Senior Citizens. The Museum of the Americas is quite large. They have all kinds of relics from pre-historic tools to Spanish Gold Bullion, fabrics, etc. The highlight of the museum is the Solid Gold Funeral Pieces: The Quimbaya Treasure, from Colombia. The museum says it was donated by the Colombian’s. Call me skeptical. They are gorgeous. All the signage is in Spanish, but that was ok, if we saw something I wanted translated I just use took a picture on my iPhone using Google and it immediately translates it to English. It works for almost all languages.

 

Strangely, and fortunately for us, the museum was almost empty. I don’t know why. There were maybe 6 visitors in this large museum. None the less we wore masks unless the galley we were in was empty.

 

Almost no one in Madrid wears a mask, but you are required to in taxis and public transportation, and a few other venues. We are wearing them much of the time. The day before we return when we take our mandatory COVID test, we will find out if we can return to US and say Spain is pretty much over COVID or we will be looking for a hotel to lock ourselves away till we test clean wishing we had worn our N95’s all of time. Here is hoping. It does add anxiety to a trip, however, wondering if you can return to the US and what to do if you can’t.

 

We went to a great store: Helena Rohner. She a wonderful designer of jewelry and objects of arts. The store is quite nice. Afterwards we stopped at a small restaurant on a plaza and had delicious Cappuccinos before returning to our hotel. The weather has actually turned cool, and we have to rethink what we are taking to Valencia.

After drinks in the restaurant we went to an absolutely wonderful wine bar, just 300 feet from the hotel. Angelita is must eat at restaurant. We had fantastic food: a Pistou that was of our dreams, Porcini Mushrooms with Eggs, and the tenderest Pork Loin I have ever eaten. Everything about this low key delicious restaurant was perfect! Rather than ordering a bottle of wine we had the server pair each course with a different Spanish Wine. They were perfect. For dessert we had an assortment of Spanish Cheese with an appropriate wine. The artisanal home made super Crusty Bread was delicious and we loved scrapping up every bit of the sauces. Why aren't there restaurants like this in Los Angeles? By the way the cost of the dinner was only 118 Euros. We can't get over how inexpensive and wonderful Madrid is. If we could speak Spanish (I am sure Cathy could learn it) we would consider moving here.