Picasso, sore feet and wine too

Museum Reina Sofía was our first stop today on our Madrid Tour Bus.  I wanted to share the pleasure of seeing the exhibits at this art museum with Caroline because I had been sapped with emotion when I’d seen Picasso’s Guernica painting.  Today, it happened all over again.  No words.

We’d promised ourselves to rest our feet today, but then we decided to walk the streets back to the Plaza Mayor from the museum, which is by the ATOCHA train Station near the Prado. I am no longer trying to calculate distance, but we walked nearly 11,000 steps by the end of the day.

It’s surprising how hot we feel with the sun on our faces while we're in the city, until we cross the street and walk in the shade.  Nice.  We continue to marvel at small shops, tall stone buildings, antique door handles, and homeless men on the sidewalks (some complete with their dingy, thin mattresses and dogs).  There are so many people on the streets, sidewalks and hanging out of windows and doorways.  Calle Atocha was also swarming with police, just as we saw later around the Kings Palace.

Back home at last...the heavy wooden door has a trick key hole that we’ve finally mastered and then another tricky key to our apartment.  We are glad there are two heavy hand rails because usually we need to pull ourselves up the steep stairwell by the time our bodies have yelled, “go home.”

Today we joined the typical day of a Spaniard and each snoozed our siesta, a nice nap before venturing out to find food and libations.  And we found both very easily since we see more cafes and shoe stores than anything else.  Oh, did I just mention shoe stores? Caroline has dutifully followed me inside the door of all of them.  I’ve been on the lookout for red polka dot shoes and she seems to love seeing me spend money.  Well, how about black polka dot shoes instead?  Yes, got them.

We found Plaza San Miguel where they served us wine and tapas and then we walked some more.  When I saw the used book store, the promise of paper books yanked us inside.  All in Spanish, some antique books, many on shelves, stacked on tables — all squished into the tiniest space I’ve ever seen with so many books.  It was perfect.

Relaxing day mostly...and tomorrow we will meet my Spanish translator, Consuela Mellado, who changed my book, The Girl Immigrant into the Spanish version with the new title of Historia de una niña emigrante.