Category Archives: Travel

Over Googled

Posted by dkrashb on
Distant Arch

Distant Arch

Madrid is full of arches.  Sometimes in surprising places.  Buildings converge and converge again and just where it seems there should be a dead-end, there is an open arch leading into a square.

Sometimes a really big square.

Places that, if they existed in the US, would have 4-lane roads, lots of traffic, and would be surrounded by parking garages suddenly appear through a discrete arch in the midst of narrow pedestrian passageways.  It gives the feeling of stumbling upon a well-kept secret.

This particular arch led to an extraordinary square that once again made me wish I’d looked up some kind of information about Madrid.  Since I have the luxury of google to assist me now, I discovered it was the Plaza Mayor, one of the more famous plazas in Madrid that was originally constructed in the early 1600’s.

Discovering the arch opens into a huge plaza

Discovering the arch opens into a huge plaza

It’s kind of interesting to have wandered around just seeing what we saw without knowing what it was we were looking at.  I’m sure someone knew.  They probably even told me.  But, it’s nice to know that I made it to the Plaza Mayor while I was in Madrid.  Kind of a second surprise to find out where I was!  :-)

The main sculpture in Plaza Mayor

The main sculpture in Plaza Mayor

That said, I find myself googling a bit too much to see if I can identify any of the other sites we walked by.  Over-googling leads to regrets.  It starts innocently enough.  You wonder what that cool statue was you saw.  You google something vague like “Madrid Square with Horse.”  Along with the photos of the place you actually were, you see photos of places like Plaza Puerta del Sol, Plaza del Callao, and Plaza Espana.  The list goes on.  You look at the images and think, “Really??  I was  minutes away from this incredible place and I didn’t get to see it!??  Really??!!  I spent 18 hours getting from my house to the hotel in Madrid and I didn’t get to see any of this stuff!!??!”

I was perfectly content that I got to spend one afternoon wandering around Madrid taking in whatever was in front of me.  Then, I over-googled and now I wish I would have done a little more research before the trip and made some sort of plan on how I was going to get to at least a few more of the incredible sites in the city’s center.

Sadly, it’s been nearly 15 years since I was last in Madrid.  There’s no telling if I will ever be there again or not.  You’d think I would think about these things before I went on a trip instead of after.

Another arch leads away from the plaza

Another arch leads away from the plaza

When I was much younger, I wanted to take a summer off and backpack around Europe.  There were rumors that people used to do that in college.  I never took a summer off to do anything like that.  Maybe I’ll take a summer off some day and make it to all the plazas in Madrid.

Archway towards the market

Archway towards the market

 

Market and outdoor diners through the arch

Market and outdoor diners through the arch

Mickey Mouse Valentine

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Courtyard in Madrid

Small church in Madrid

Here it is, Valentine’s Day, and I’m still working my way through photos from Madrid that have nothing to do with the holiday.  To top it off, I’m fighting a sinus infection and not feeling either romantic or like writing.

But, since when has that stopped me?

So, let’s start with Mickey in Madrid and see if we can end up at Valentine’s Day, shall we?

My last several posts have been from a meandering afternoon through the center of Madrid.  Here, we found yet another square but with the rather inexplicable surprise that Mickey Mouse was standing in the middle of it.

Mickey surprised us

Mickey surprised us

Clearly, this is not Disney World.  I suspect it was some sort of Disney recruitment program.  Perhaps for a Disney training program targeting people who might not be qualified for jobs that require them to speak or perform duties, providing them with gainful employment after receiving their Disney Character Certification.  I wonder if they offer classes online?

The final photo I will share today is of tables and chairs in yet another square.  You might think these tables and chairs are just being stored here, waiting for the spring before they will be used again.  However, on this sunny Sunday when it was about 45 degrees Fahrenheit, we witnessed many occupied tables in open squares.  Granted, the ones that were occupied were mostly under tents and had outdoor heaters around the tables.  But eating al fresco remains a priority in Madrid this time of year.

Outdoor eating

Outdoor eating

If I were in a more romantic mood, I would imagine a table in the corner of one of the more secluded squares.  I see a big white tent, filled with flowering vines of one form or another.  The heaters are on high, filling the tent with an enveloping warmth while the wind keeps the air moving through fast enough to keep it fresh.

There are candles.  Many candles.  And perhaps a young couple cozying up, sitting side-by-side at that corner table.  Holding hands, kissing.  Looking like the entire world is at their table.

Romance is for people who can forget about bills, jobs, dishes, laundry, and all the other realities of life.  It requires the ability to suspend disbelief.  The willingness to ignore our imperfections, our limitations, sometimes even outright lies.  There was a time when I knew how to do that.  But, somehow the suspension of disbelief seemed to also mean eliminating good judgment for me.

I’m sure there are people in this world who have found a way to combine romance with healthy relationships.  In fact, I know there are books out there about how important romance is to healthy relationships.  But, for me, I’ll take the guy who will walk the dog for me in the morning because I’m staying in bed with a sinus infection over the guy who takes me out for an expensive dinner in a romantic courtyard (even if it were in Madrid).

Entertainment in Madrid

Posted by dkrashb on
Another lovely fountain in front of a horse monument (yeah, I should have bought a tourist guide book)

Another lovely fountain in front of a horse monument (yeah, I should have bought a tourist guide book)

One of the popular sources of entertainment on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the center of Madrid seems to be street performers.  We discovered a clown of sorts performing in one large square.  We stopped to watch for a while, but as hard as the crowd was laughing, his humor didn’t translate for us.

Reminds me of when I was in Korea as a teenager.  I went to see one of the Beverly Hills Cop movies with some Korean friends.  It was in English but subtitled in Korean.  I would laugh out loud about 10 seconds before the rest of the audience.  That was embarrassing enough, but what was really embarrassing was when I would laugh so hard my eyes would water and the rest of the audience never started laughing even after they got caught up reading the subtitles.  Not sure what was lost in translation, but I felt a little exposed laughing in the dark surrounded by people wondering what was so funny.

A relatively empty passage leading to an arch that opens onto another square

A relatively empty passage leading to an arch that opens onto another square

Back in Madrid, as we wandered from square to square and fountain to fountain, we discovered different forms of street performance around every corner.  There was the fairly traditional “dress like something that shouldn’t move and hold really still” approach.  Then, there was the “put three heads on a table and try to startle passers-by” approach that seemed like it had been borrowed from a haunted house.  There were also collections of puppet-like animals that would start making a variety of noises as people walked by.

There were the requisite magicians as well.  While I was tempted to take some shots of all of these clever performers, etiquette requires change if you take a picture.  Since I only had American dollars on me, that wasn’t an option.

I did cheat on this rule.  Two magicians were clever enough to create the illusion that one of them sitting on the ground was holding a chair over his head in one hand while the other magician sat in it.  This was just so much effort on their parts that I had to take a picture.

Clever street performers

Clever street performers

Unfortunately, so as not to breech etiquette too much, I took the shot from far away–hopefully you can tell from the image what they looked like.  We figured out that the hand holding the chair was fake and that a metal support was going up the sleeve and down to the seat the guy on the bottom was sitting on, allowing him to balance the weight of the guy above him.  It’s still rather ingenious.

I have to wonder what makes a person decide to invest this kind of creativity into their street art.  Are these guys engineers Monday-Friday and magicians on Sunday afternoon?  Were they watching some other magic trick one day of perhaps a guy spinning a chair on his hand and they suddenly looked at each other and said, “Hey!  Wouldn’t it be cool if . . . “?

Whatever their story is, I appreciate the trick.

Another look at the cobblestone street bordered by buildings

Another look at the cobblestone street bordered by buildings

Wandering Madrid

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Looking down a main street in Madrid

Looking down a main street in Madrid

After indulging in delicious Spanish dishes (not to mention Sangria), we wandered around Madrid at a slow pace perfect for how I was feeling.  One of the questions I always ask myself is how do you describe the difference between a European city and a city in the US?

I’ve spent time in about a dozen major European cities over the years.  While each of them has their own characteristics that make them unique, they also have something in common that I find difficult to articulate.

Perhaps it’s a factor of age.  Or density of the architecture.  The buildings are literally on top of each other.  Entire city blocks have no gaps between buildings.  Yet, there are blocks just as crowded in NYC.  They still don’t look European.

Perhaps it’s the pavers they use for sidewalks and streets?  Sometimes more like cobblestones than pavers.  Rarely is the sidewalk simple concrete and the road plain asphalt.  In fact, I often find myself walking in the street thinking I’m on a sidewalk because they are sometimes indistinguishable.  The roads are often so narrow they seem like they must be for pedestrians only.

As I ponder exactly what it is that European cities have in common that make them distinguishable from US cities, we wander through a square.  Rows of market stalls full of goods cover the majority of the square–it’s the Sunday market.

Entering the Sunday Market

Entering the Sunday Market

Thankfully, my colleagues are not inclined to wander through the market for hours.  I have little patience for shopping; particularly when I’m jet lagged and in a foreign country.  Although, foreign markets are usually more interesting than the markets at home since you can learn something about a culture from what’s at the Sunday market.  I need to be well rested for an anthropology expedition to the market, however.  All I could think about at this point was how long could I stay awake.  My belly was full and the sun was shining.  Finding a spot to lay down was sounding appealing.

The first fountain

The first fountain

From the market, we found a fountain.  This is not hard to do.  There are many fountains in downtown Madrid.  It would probably be harder to not see a fountain than to see one.  As we made our way around the fountain, we looked up and saw a group of modern looking skyscrapers ahead of us.

I would have loved my full-frame camera with my 16-35mm lens–I could have captured the older buildings in the foreground against the modern buildings in the background.  That’s definitely one of the characteristics of European cities–buildings that pre-date Columbus’s arrival in the new world juxtaposed against modern buildings like some sort of anachronism.

Rome is particularly surprising in how tightly integrated the ancient and modern can be.  I suppose this is the natural outcome of having had a massive, ancient civilization and then having had the crap bombed out of it during the wars, leaving gaps that had to be filled.

 

Modern sky scrapers with just a smidgen of older architecture in the foreground

Modern sky scrapers with just a smidgen of older architecture in the foreground

Sunday Afternoon

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The front of the restaurant

The front of the restaurant

Traveling to Europe is something I really do not enjoy.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love Europe.  It truly is a different world from the US and everyone should experience at least some part of Europe first hand.  I just don’t like getting there.

I left my home at 11AM on Saturday morning in the first “snow storm” we’ve had since moving here.  It took nearly an hour to get to the airport (normally a 15 minute drive) because there was about an inch of snow on the ground.  With no snow clearing equipment and lots of steep climbs, traffic was a mess.

It's not a biker hang out--this is just typical in Europe where gas is so expensive

It’s not a biker hang out–this is just typical in Europe where gas is so expensive

When I arrived in Madrid, it was about 9:00AM Madrid time Sunday morning.  AKA 3AM Eastern time.  Therein lies the problem.  The vast majority of the time I would have spent sleeping evaporated into thin air.  Fortunately, my hotel room was available for an early check in and I managed to lie down for a nap by 11AM.

One of my well-traveled colleagues called my room at 1PM and informed me we were going into town and we were leaving immediately.  I had apparently missed a few text messages while I was napping.  I jumped out of bed, splashed water on my face, threw on some clothes, and was in the lobby 10 minutes later.

Couldn't help but drool a little over the Ducati

Couldn’t help but drool a little over the Ducati

Getting outside is quite important to time shifting.  The sun helps your body reset its clock.  So, although still somewhat incoherent, I forced myself to join my colleagues on this little adventure.

Since the conference we were there to support was at an airport hotel, it was about a 20 minute cab ride to the center of town.  Fortunately, one of my colleagues is fluent in Spanish and managed to convince the driver to go through town rather than taking the freeway so we got a bit of a tour on the way.

Closer view of the restaurant - not a big place

Closer view of the restaurant – not a big place

Armed only with an iPhone for a camera, I attempted to get some shots of the city.  Wow is it hard to get decent landscape photos with an iPhone!  I have admired other bloggers’ iPhone photos in the past–I am now in awe of their abilities.  The dynamic range of the iPhone is not good and I found it impossible to hold it stable or straight.  The dynamic range issue was exacerbated by the fact that it was early afternoon with strong shadows and bright sunlight.  But, I wasn’t about to lug my 5D Mark III along on a business trip–the iPhone was better than nothing.

We wandered our way through the streets to a tiny restaurant known to my Spanish-speaking colleague.  The couple who owns the restaurant greeted us and welcomed us in a way that made us feel like we were visiting their home.  They patiently explained the menu to us, sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish.  They served us pitchers of Sangria freshly made and filled our bellies with traditional Spanish dishes.

Attempted to get a shot of the inside--not so good with iPhone, but gives an idea

Attempted to get a shot of the inside–not so good with iPhone, but gives an idea

I was really glad I’d gotten out of bed.

Boarding a Plane

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Sunrise from plane window as we approach Madrid (iPhone)

Sunrise from plane window as we approach Madrid (iPhone)

I’ve just gotten on a plane for the second leg of a 3-leg journey from Chattanooga to Madrid. We’re about 5 minutes from our departure time. There are about a dozen people standing in the aisle trying to find places for their baggage. The flight attendant is announcing for the third time to bring your bags that won’t fit under the seat to the front so they can be checked.

Two men are desperately trying to keep their bags from being checked. One of them walks down the aisle asking if anyone has a small bag they can put under their seat to make room or if someone else will check a bag to make room for theirs. “Does anyone want to help!? We’ve got a long way to go!” He calls out as he moves through the aisle.

I kept thinking the clouds were snow-covered mountains.

I kept thinking the clouds were snow-covered mountains.

I am offended more by his lack of logic than his imposition. I cannot put together the pieces in his mind that tell him he is somehow more entitled to overhead space or that he will somehow be more inconvenienced than anyone else on the plane would be by having to check his bag. What about the distance you have to fly makes whether you check your bag or not more or less convenient? Does he believe he’s the only one on the plane who has a connection?

There is a ruckus at the front of the plane and I hear a flight attendant declare in a voice just below a shout, “Back off, sir!” I momentarily wish I had an aisle seat so I could see what is happening. At this point, I find myself worried that these guys are terrorists with some horrible plot dependent on them having their carry-ons on the plane. I am relieved that they are forced to check their bags. I would feel better if they were removed from the plane all together. After all, perhaps it would be a good lesson for them to understand that the odds of making a connection on time are greatest when you cooperate with the flight crew.

Close-up of clouds catching sunrise

Close-up of clouds catching sunrise

Perhaps they just don’t understand that the airline will check their bags all the way through to their destination and they don’t have to go pick them up between flights. Or maybe they’ve done this trip a dozen times and every time they checked their bags, their luggage was forever lost? I don’t know.

I’ve had to check my bag when I didn’t want to more than once. It’s annoying, but less annoying than delaying take off by acting like a brat. I’ve had luggage lost on many occasions. The worst was when my bag went to Ecuador, Panama, New Jersey, and Houston while I was in Austin. It took 3 days to catch up with me. I had to go shopping and then ship a portion of the contents of my bag home to make room for my purchases. I lived.

Last of the cloud bank before I am forced to put my iPhone away

Last of the cloud bank before I am forced to put my iPhone away

Many Bridges

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Many years ago, about 6 months after I started learning how to use the manual controls on my PowerShot G3, I was sent to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on 3 separate trips for several days at a time.

I took my camera with me on the 2nd and 3rd trips after seeing how interesting the town is.  As I browse through the photos now, I am reminded of Chattanooga.  Harrisburg is about the same size as Chattanooga, has a river running through the heart of downtown (the Susquehanna River in the case of Harrisburg vs the Tennessee River in Chattanooga), and even has a Walnut Street Bridge that’s been converted to a pedestrian-only bridge.

Like Chattanooga, the riverfront offers endless photo-ops, although it seemed as though Harrisburg might not have created as many destinations along the riverfront as away from it.  Harrisburg has more bridges that cross the river within a short section.  But Chattanooga has two giant advantages:  mountains and warmer weather.

It’s not really a competition.  They are both cool towns with great architectural features and lovely rivers.  I really enjoyed walking down by the river when I had the opportunity in Harrisburg and working on capturing an interesting view of the bridges.  While I was able to improve these old photos somewhat by reprocessing them, they were taken with a point-and-shoot camera with 4 megapixel resolution 8 years ago.  Digital photography has come a long way since then.

I, also, have learned a few things.  For starters, shooting with the sun high in the sky was not optimal.  Making sure the water is level before pushing the shutter button was another big miss–I had to straighten these in software.  It’s interesting that with experience, the world acquires less and less tilt.

I particularly enjoyed shooting through the bridges to see more bridges behind.  There are so many bridges that from the right angle, the bridges seem endless.  I had a good time playing with different angles, but as the light faded, I learned why one of my photographer friends kept urging me to buy a tripod.

I learned quite a few things that trip.  For one, having a camera on a business trip can be quite entertaining when you’re traveling by yourself.  For another, taking a warm hat on a business trip is a requirement if you’re planning to entertain yourself by shooting a scenic river in January in Harrisburg.

I left Harrisburg after my last trip there feeling enchanted.  Having made the round of the downtown cathedrals and the state capital building, I was pleasantly surprised by the historic buildings and the overall grandeur of the town.  I suspect that had I spent more time there, I would have continued to discover wonderful secrets about the place.

 

Skin Problems

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I have one last story from our wedding/elopement (that always seems like a fake word to me) to share with you and then I will return to current events in tomorrow’s post.

On the day after our “wedding,” we decided to go to Taliesin West–the Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture that was out in the middle of nowhere the first time I visited  in the early ‘90s.  As of 6 years ago, it was on the outskirts of Scottsdale.  Now, it may be in the middle of downtown.

I like Frank Lloyd Wright buildings when it comes to interesting places to visit.  However, I wouldn’t want to live in one.  For one thing, he apparently sized everything to make himself look taller.  I am tall.  I don’t feel the need to be made to look taller and I don’t really appreciate being forced to duck through doorways just because the man had a complex.  It is a great tour, however.

Only about 5 miles away, McDowell Mountain promised a nice hike in the afternoon, so we took the long route back to the resort and made a stop at McDowell.

Mountains in Phoenix are like miniature versions of the mountains of the Pacific Northwest minus all the foliage and, of course, snow.  Without the trees and snow caps, they resemble acne.  The desert is suddenly, almost rudely, interrupted by a big old brown bump that looks like some sort of underlying infection caused it to swell above the surface of the landscape.  I mean this in the most loving of ways.

While the sudden appearance of these bumps on the landscape might be somewhat odd, one of the great advantages of these isolated, suburban mountains is they afford amazing views across otherwise flat land.

How could we resist making the short drive to one of these pimples to check it out?  Unfortunately, we didn’t really pack hiking clothes.  We had many layers and waterproof jackets/pants for the Grand Canyon tour, but waterproof clothes are really hot.  While it wasn’t scorching hot in Phoenix in December, it wasn’t “wrap yourself in plastic and hike up a mountain” cold.  Having just come from Taliesin West, we were wearing our “good” clothes.  We looked the paved, gently graded trail and decided we would be just fine.

For once, we were right.  Although the climb got a little steep, we managed to make it to the top without sweating through our shirts too badly.

And the views were completely worth it.  It was at that moment I realized why so many people move to Phoenix.  That little pimple makes for quite an overlook!

West is East of East

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On our wedding day, we each went through our pre-wedding grooming with anticipation that was surprising considering we’d been living together for 10 years by the time we got married.

Me in my new dress (which Pat helped pick out) and Pat in his new suit (which he’d failed to get tailored, so it gave him a sweet little-boy-in-Dad’s-suit look), we headed towards Mesa.

As a side note, I did not help him pick out his suit.  He thought it was hilarious to not let me see it until the last possible second.  I think he was going for a backwards-themed wedding given that we’d already reversed so many other traditions.

We gave ourselves three times as much time as we’d been told we would need to get to the courthouse.  We had to arrive by 4:50PM so there would still be witnesses there to sign the wedding license.  The judge performed ceremonies after hours.

We made great time, got to the road the courthouse was on with plenty of time to spare, and headed East.  We crossed from W University Dr to E University Dr and started watching for the courthouse.  We got to the spot where it was supposed to be; there was no building with that address.

Puzzled, we turned around and drove back the other way, thinking maybe we had the address wrong and it was really W University Dr.  We got to where the address should should have been and, again, there was no building with that number.

We called the courthouse and they told us they were, in fact, on E University Dr and provided helpful hints for someone who’s never been there like “we’re right next to the intersection where the McDonald’s used to be.”

We turned around, headed back East, and came to the same place we’d been before.  No building had magically appeared.  I called again.  They seemed completely clueless as to where we could be or how to help.  We were starting to panic.  We were running out of time.

On a whim, we decided to keep going East in case there was some weird mis-ordering of addresses or something.  As we continued to go East, E University Dr suddenly became W University Dr again.  This made our heads spin.  I pulled out my glasses to make sure I was looking at the right road on Google maps on my Blackjack (remember those?) fearful we had just gone in a circle without realizing it.  We had not.

We nearly turned around again, but I had the sudden thought that if there were two W University Drives, there must be two E University Drives, too.  So, we kept going East.  And, lo and behold, there was another E University Dr and we found our courthouse just in time.

And that is the story of how I learned West is East of East.

P.S.  Photo Credits on pictures of us go to the Judge who married us–he took pictures with my PowerShot G3 while he was marrying us.

Cliff Driving

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I should start this story by saying I’m terrified of heights.  That said, after our mini-adventure at the Grand Canyon, we decided to take the scenic route back to Scottsdale via the Apache Trail.  This is a scenic drive, not a hike.  I use the term “drive” loosely.  Crawl might be more appropriate.

Somehow, in my meticulous planning of our trip and research on the Apache Trail, I failed to understand that a good portion is a 1 1/2 lane wide, two-way dirt road hung on the side of a cliff so steep and high that I couldn’t manage to look down it.  RVs apparently travel this road from time to time.  I’m convinced had I managed to gather the courage to look over the edge, I would have discovered where those RVs end up.

Since I had rented the car with my frequent traveler points and we hadn’t added Pat as a driver (they charge a lot for that), I had the great pleasure of driving in the outside lane with the cliff on the right.  This was OK since I could mostly drive on the left side of the road, leaving a 1/2 car-width gap between us and the edge of the cliff.  However, panic ensued when a car came the other direction.

This required finding a wide spot in the road, pulling as close to the guard-railless edge and stopping while I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my skin melded with the vinyl covering on the steering wheel.  I can’t claim I was the most pleasant person on this drive.

When the second car approached, it didn’t slow down.  It just came barreling at us like we were on some four-lane highway in the desert.  I got as close to the edge as I dared, stopped, and braced for impact.  The car slipped by so close that had our rearview mirrors been at the same height, they would have hit.  I suspect this was a local who takes great pleasure in terrorizing tourists.

At this point, I didn’t care what the rental car policy said.  I got out of the car and informed Pat I was not driving one more inch.

Unfortunately, sitting in the passenger seat next to the cliff where I couldn’t see the edge of the road was not exactly comforting.  It says a lot about my husband that he didn’t drop me off at the Phoenix airport instead of continuing straight to our hotel by the time we got off that road that was never meant to be a road.

The net of this “scenic” drive was that we didn’t get to enjoy the scenery except when we stopped to stretch at the periodic pullouts.  It also took about the same time to drive the dirt stretch as if we were riding mountain bikes.

My advice: follow the lead of the Apache and walk the darn thing!

Like life, it’s beautiful, but best enjoyed as a destination rather than a route.