European holiday, Part 6

I'm just going to pound out the rest of our trip so here's to my longest post ever!

MADRID

I loved this beautiful city and I loved seeing it even more with my husband because it is where he spent a life changing 2 years of his life. We arrived on a train ride in the morning and walked through Atocha train station. I'd heard J mention it many times and it was very nostalgic for him to be there again. We set out on foot with our 2 roller suitcases to find our hotel, which we thought was relatively close. After walking, and walking, and walking some more J realized that we were on the wrong street and had gone about a half mile too far. We ended up signaling a cab to drop us at the hotel a mile in the other direction.

Arriving at Atocha where he made many a transfer

We got settled into our room, and then set out on foot to walk through the 2nd area J lived in on his mission. We walked the streets for several hours and it was so fun seeing all the things that came back to him or the memories he had of different streets and buildings. He found his old apartment building, and then we headed across a river to his final area. I loved seeing the parts of Madrid where the working class people live and I could definitely tell that we weren't in the tourist traps anymore. We found his other apartment building and walked through a plaza where they made contacts as a district every week. I was grateful to get a real sense of where he worked as a missionary and am so happy to have something concrete to relate to when we talk about his mission experiences. I didn't realize that he was in such an urban atmosphere, but everything is very close together, tall, busy and crowded. The people get around on bus, train, metro and very few in the city own cars.

Apartment building in 2nd area

The whole building

Apartment building in final area

Plaza Oporto where the district made street contacts

After our walk we went back to our room and got ready to go to the temple. The Madrid temple is beautiful, inside and out. We attended a session that was in Protuguese, but both listened to the headphones in Spanish. The building is exquisite and it was amazing that although we were on the other side of the earth, the spirit of the temple was exactly the same as every other temple I've been in. The workers were so kind and helpful to us and we were able to walk around and see most of the rooms in the temple.

We spent the night exploring the plaza mayor at Sol and enjoyed the night time atmosphere there. I was continually surprised that everyone was out at night- families with young children, teenagers, middle-agers, and even many elderly people. I commented to J that because families and the elderly are out at night it seems to keep the streets safer, unlike here where generally it's the  people up to no good that are out roaming the streets late at night.

Saturday we had another busy day, starting with a morning run around El Retiro, the central park of Madrid. We loved the morning air and saw some great sights as we ran. The buildings in the downtown are very impressive and old, but they are well preserved. We walked along the Calle de Alcala and ended up at a great restaurant recommended by my friend Eryka for some churros and chocolate. It was like a melted chocolate candy bar in a cup that you dipped warm churros in. Divine! We finished off our souvineer shopping at El Corte Ingles and I brought home a beautiful Lladro flamanco dancing doll.

The statue of my lladro doll, except mine is colored

A sampling of our shopping bags

We returned to our hotel and showered and then checked our luggage at the train station in a luggage holding area. We then set out to visit Real Madrid's stadium, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. As we were approching, J noticed that a ton of people had on team gear and when we got out it was very crowded with fans and vendors. We approached the ticket boxes and realized that there was a game that night! J had checked the schedule when we first decided to take this trip, and must have misread the dates so we didn't get tickets. We ran to the ticket window, but the only ones left were over 150 Euros ($225) each and we just couldn't pull the trigger. After that disappointment we went to the Prado art museum and spent an hour seeing the beautiful works of art there. It is probably the most cohesive art museum that I've seen, in that most of the paintings are of Catholic scenes of Christ by Spanish artists.

Luggage lockers are awesome and this fit all of our pieces

Real Madrid's stadium

The Prado

Once we finished our tour there we left to find the streets full of protesters campaining for educational reform. J said that it is completely normal for staged protests to ocurr around the city on a regular basis and it was interesting to see one. We went back to the train station and rented a car for our drive to Cuenca. J was so happy to drive in Spain since he was never able to as a missionary.

CUENCA is a little city (60,000) to the east of Madrid where J served as a branch president for 8 months. It only took an hour and a half to drive there and it was lovely to get outside the big city and see the countryside at dusk. Spain looks kind of like Southern Utah in that there are rolling hills and sage brush and everything is different shades of brown. There were literally olive trees and groves all along the freeway and I could see why Spain is the main producer of olive oil.

Protesters outside of Atocha

Olive trees

We made plans to stay with Margarita, a member of the Cuenca branch, and were warmly welcomed into her piso. She had a beautiful 4 bedroom apartment and gave us our own room and bathroom to use. She served us a wonderful dinner and we stayed up for the next 4 hours talking and laughing together. Margarita's parents live with her now and her father is in poor health and under 24 hour care. Her mother was so sweet and cooked us all the food that we ate.

J and Margarita

Margarita's sweet parents

We woke up Sunday and ate a quick breakfast before heading to church. The church building is housed on the first floor and basement of an apartment building and this Sunday there were 7 members along with the 2 missionaries and us. I played the keyboard and they were so kind and grateful to have someone play music for their church meetings. It was fast Sunday and we had the opportunity to hear the members speak and each took a turn to share our testimonies. J was so overcome the first time he stood up that he had to sit down and collect himself. It was a very  powerful experience to be there with them and the spirit in the branch was very strong. After the meetings we took pictures together and then met up with a member Isabel who offered to tour us around the city after dinner.

Cuenca church members

The members who were there when J was the branch president

The office

The church from outside

We returned to Margarita's home and ate a wonderful meal of salad, paella, bread and had flan and ice cream for dessert. I loved talking to her and hearing about her conversion and feeling of her faith. She told us to come again and stay for a week and we'd love that. We left her home and met up with Isabel and her friend to tour old town Cuenca.

The city was built in the 1600's and was an impressive sight up on the hill. It housed a monastery and a beautiful chapel and had different buildings up and down the street. We also stood on a bridge overlooking the river and enjoyed all of the sights.

Old town Cuenca

The plaza of old town

View from the bridge

We left for the airport and got there just in time to check in the car before it was due. We wandered the streets for an hour looking for a hotel (always book in advance) and finally got to sleep. We were up early to spend our Monday flying. We flew from Madrid to London, had a 2 hour layover and then took the 10 hour direct flight home. We landed and spent 2 more hours going through immigration and customs and finally arrived home at 7pm. Our little girls came bursting out of the door when we opened the garage and it was wonderful to see and hold them again.

We loved our trip. It was seriously amazing and enriching and so memorable. I'd do it over in a heart beat and am so appreciative to J's parents for hosting us in London and to my sister, Dad, and mostly my Mother for watching our girls so that we didn't have to worry. I am more grateful for my husband. He is tough, he can roll with the punches, he is thoughtful and caring and he's my best friend.  I'm glad that we can walk this journey of life together.