The Last Days of of the Trip

It was our last day to get out and see Madrid. So what had to happen?

{Shoes and wet pavement.}
A pollen nastied wind kick up all of the histamines of the city and threw them in my face; all up in my mucus membranes.
As soon as we left the hotel, I was miserable. I should have been excited, but all of Madrid went up my nose and I was horrified at the thought of getting sick outside my usual realms. I did that once in Derby, England and I swear my sinuses (even my ears) have not been right ever since. To this day, I curse that place for my succumbing to illness during that long, chilled night waiting for the stupid East Midland train.
So this vile Spanish wind was bringing a storm front with it. After weeks of sun and hot weather, it finally rained. A passing shower, really. We hung around outside eating lunch to let ourselves get get caught in it. When it got too heavy, we did the city thing and stood under the nearest welcoming over hang until the clouds thinned. This kind of precipitation was enough to drop all the pollen out of the air, at least. I could calm my unreasonable fears of becoming sick. But then I felt… I was overtired, wired on espresso – Full and empty. We were going to leave. I could accept the leaving in a way because I felt I would be back. I would come back to Europe. I would live in Europe. Someday. Hey, I felt that about the UK and I managed to hit it up twice. So why not?
We took one last run around the Prado and went back to the hotel to pack up and pack it in for the night. The next morning and the whole day would be given over to the tedium of travelling in cramped spaces.
Notes: RockStar is a horrible drink, airplane food can give you a horrible stomach ache, TSA is extra horrible for international flights (7 checkpoints? really?), and decompression time is not horrible- it is a must!

Real Madrid C.F. Won Something

{They so like masses.}

Then I was reminded about this thing that most American’s don’t know about called futbol…

I didn’t want to quit my Spain reveries before mentioning the futbol. While we were in Madrid, not only was there a prominent saintly festival, there was a championship futbol game that Real Madrid just happened to win. In the words of my Human, ‘the whole city was exploding.’ Team colors were suddenly everywhere. The police were ready for rioting and had a plan to keep all the drunken revellers funnelled, channeled and corralled. It was a madhouse, but you could navigate it without being overborne with people finding some way to make noise. After nightfall some asshats managed to set off a couple of m80s en Barrio de Las Letras where the streets are narrowest… Does anyone understand wave mechanics? the physics of sound? .. guh. La policia came quick for them.

AND. Just to make this time more surreal, we gathered that there was some kind of cosplay convention going on. We must have seen rangers or elves or hobbits or something pass us by in the dark because out of their mouth came perfect English from a meme favorite- ‘They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard.’ This made me die laughing. Head exploded, as they say.

{Quit smiling at me, bub.}