Last days in Madrid

"Daddy, take a picture!"

Sunday, November 7th- Market day! And what a market it was. The EL Rastro flea market covers at least ten blocks (at least, but it was too overwhelming to take it all in) and the streets are all broken down into themes: antiques, food, clothing, furniture, trinkets.... amazing! We read somewhere that El Rastro is one of the largest flea markets in the world, and I totally believe it. During our morning's walk Sven saw a painting he loved but he didn't buy (200 euros!), we bought a little wizard puppet, and some flamenco dresses.

After we were thoroughly overwhelmed we ducked into a little coffee shop for what we hoped would be a quick coffee but ended up being a look into the most disorganized, chaotic cafe ever. It was painful, and the 20 minutes it took to order drinks was extremely sad to see. And we didn't even manage to figure out how to pay, because that would have entailed another 20 miutes, so after relaxing and enjoying the warmth we eventually just left some money on the table and ran out. Our discombobulation at the cafe may have led to the chaos that shortly followed, but we'll never be sure... What we do know is that Sven wanted to go back and take a picture of the horse painting that he'd seen earlier and we agreed to meet at a little Y in the market. Seemed reasonable at the time. But then another thousand or so people showed up to do their shopping and it was one black headed, black-sweatered man after another. (At one point Bella saw a guy in a black sweater with a camera covering his face and yelled, "Hi daddy!").

After 20 minutes of waiting at the Y we started to get annoyed. 30 minutes we started to get worried. 40 minutes angry. 50 minutes resigned and 1 hour a combination of all the above. (aren't those the stages of grief??) After just over an hour of waiting next to clothing stalls, Spanish guitar singers and lots and lots of smokers, we finally gave up and started to walk home, hopeful that Sven would know the way (we had the map). About 5 minutes away from home we ran into Sven, who'd been walking around looking for us for what he described as two hours, but really was just over an hour. Apparently he'd been waiting at the same Y as we had for a while, but we were 50 meters apart and going by the agreed-upon method of staying still until you are found (which doesn't work if someone isn't looking). We were all cold and frustrated (but ecstatic to find each other) and hungry so we ducked into a little upscale tapas bar to debrief. A few marvelous ham toasts later we were surprised when our cool waiter whipped out his balloons and made perros (dogs) for the girls.

Rather than going home we decided to go the last art museum on our list, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza which had a marvelous collection of impressionist, expressionist and modern works (Madrid is the place to see art!) and then, thoroughly exhausted, we headed home to collapse into our respective heaps.

Buying empanadas

"Where are you, daddy?"

"Where is the justice? HERE is the ministry of justice!" Another plea not to sweep Franco-era injustice under the rug.

Monday, November 8th- Not having much luck finding any sights open on a Monday, we decided to head back to the antique shop that had the horse painting that had been haunting Sven. Winter had hit Madrid, though, so the walk was chilly, especially Bella in her flamenco dancing outfit. We found it with little problem and when we asked the price for the painting were quoted 50 euros less than the day before! Still we debated buying it, since its gargantuan frame would make it hard to get home. Another 30 euros less later, and Sven happily walked out with it under his arm. As we were about to turn into our apartment Sven noticed a DHL shipping place across the street and we ran in to get a shipping quote. 294 euros! Argh.

Sven dropped it off at the apartment while we ran off to get lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall with a 9 euro set menu. The food was extremely basic (fried chicken breasts and steaks with no seasoning at all) but the shopkeepers were extremely excited to see us. The set menu came with either wine or dessert, so naturally the kids and Sven chose dessert while I chose wine. The wine was an entire bottle of perfectly drinkable table wine. I kept expecting the waiter to come over and scrutinize how much I'd drank of the bottle (only 1/3, sadly) but when we left he just charged us the 27 euros for all 3 of us. And to think I could have drank that entire bottle....
We all returned home to hang out with Sven while he took apart the painting to try to get the package down to a more manageable size. An hour later, the cost for shipping the painting was down to just over 200. Maybe not such a good deal on a painting after all, but at least we all like it...

The painting.

An evening shot...