At Home in Madrid

It was the high prices on hotels that prompted us to find an apartment to rent in this city of 3 million people, the capital of Spain.

(Of course - unbeknownst to us – our timing put us in the midst of the Festival Week of their Patron Saint so the town was at a tourist peak.)

We found our place as result of Joel’s research; renting from a company, Spain Select , that we hoped was as good as travelers’ reviews portrayed it to be and hoped that the place would be as nice as the internet photos made it appear.
Using our cell phone we called as the train reached Madrid and were met within minutes of our arrival at the building by the company representative.

We are on the corner of the top floor of this building – we have six balcony windows from which we can watch the world go by. It is great for watching the neighborhood come to life.


There is no lift in the building, as they say here, so we climb 65 well-worn but highly polished wood stairs to reach ‘our place’.
And it is a spacious place as evidenced by the living and dining room.  Now the kitchen is a narrow little affair that a wall backs up to the spacious bathroom.  We have two bedrooms (the second has a single twin bed) at the opposite end of the apartment.
All in all we are quite satisfied – we’ve lucked out and are in a great neighborhood, only a couple blocks from ultra luxe places, The Ritz and The Palace Hotels.

(Met a fellow last night staying at The Ritz and he said his cup of coffee there was $15 and the refill another $15.  Our pot of homemade Starbucks each morning is a wonderful thing. . .even if a half pound did cost about $9US)

Estamos en Espana!

Yes, this blog post is being written in Madrid - we have arrived in Spain.  Seems those serene, silent days at sea have been replaced with the magic of Madrid.  The travel gods have been good to us this trip - better than the techno gods. 

I lost the ability to enter the blog our last day at sea and the wi-fi connection in our Madrid apartment doesn't recognize our little computer . . .or vice versa.  I have plenty of ship stories yet to tell so will intermix them with tales of Spain - now that we have found Starbucks and Internet access again!

Just to start our Spanish tales, I will begin with:

Running the Red Light

You see had our taxi driver in Barcelona not run the last red light we hit between the port and the train station we would have missed our train to Madrid.  And we are not the type to go racing through train stations (it isn't a pretty thing like in the movies) but there we were loaded with bags, juggling and stumbling our way through security checks, down escalators, past tickets booths and thanks to the driver running the light we made the train with a minute to spare.  One minute after we reached our seats, the train whistle blew.

There was a problem again at the port we learned causing our departure to be delayed from the ship (those silly Spanish are cutting their noses off to spite their faces with the slow-downs they are having) anyway we had allowed ourselves two hours between getting off the ship and getting to the nearby train station.

Actual time:  Got in taxi at 10:38 still beside the ship (we waited in line nearly an hour for a taxi) at 10:45 I announced from the backseat that we would miss our 11 a.m. train.  That seemed to spark the driver - he raced through the last red light; we paid as he drove, and at 10:48 we clumsily threw ourselves into the train car. At 10:59 the whistle blew and at 11 the train started.

Not the way we like to travel. . .but here we are in Madrid.  More soon about this wonderful town.

And the (Glass) Show Goes On

My foot was braced on the foot stool and still I smeared nail polish on my toe as I attempted to primp for the evening’s festivities.  The strong wind and high waves were continuing to rock  the ship.

I tell you that to put into perspective the  show we had just watched three floors above us:  the Corning Glass Museum’s Hot Glass Show; where we all swayed in the wind watching Leane Rae Quade , (better known in the art world as “Quade”) create a vase out of three pounds of molten glass by turning a pole of similar weight.
We watched as she worked with  1900-degree molten glass – a process that requires precision, and on this day, a lot of sweat as well. 

A few days later we chatted with her – after learning from other guests that was ‘also from Seattle’.

Her life is one of three months aboard and three months off the ship. She’ll be making art objects aboard the Eclipse on the next leg of her journey but does work with the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. 

The Celebrity/Corning partnership has provided quite a ‘treat’ for passengers with as many as two shows a day on ‘sea days. None of the glass created by the three on-board artists is sold. But several pieces will be auctioned prior to the end of the cruise with that money going to scholarships.

Lisbon, Portugal

We’ve arrived in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal after traveling some six miles up the River Tagus from the Atlantic Ocean to reach this, the oldest capital city of Europe.

We are docked in its expansive bay, called the Mar da Palha” or “Sea of Straw”.  We stopped here a couple years ago on a repositioning cruise so plan to re-visit some of our favorites today. Or we may catch the local train and head to Estoril or Cascais, nearby cities and within an easy day trip.

We loved much about Lisbon on our previous stop especially the clanking trolley cars that clattered their way up to the Alfama, the oldest part of the city, located on the sloping hills below the Castelo de Sao Jorge (St. George’s Castle) on a hilltop in the 12th century A.D. – on the same place they believe that Phoenician’s established themselves around 1200 B.C.

Phoenicians  were followed by a parade of ‘occupants” including the Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors until finally in 1147 A.D. it was conquered by the guy who would become the first King of Portugal, Dom Afonso Henriques.

Whereever we end up today, we'll be strolling wide, tree-lined (in places) avenues, many paved with mosaics making them sprawling works of art. And we plan to sip coffee at one of the many cafes that frame those streets. 

Solstice: Entertainers with a Capital E!

There’s been so much to see and do on this ship the last week, that we are in need of rest – our first port day feels like a rest day. Is that too much fun?

Entertainment is never ending – someone is always performing at poolside or on the aft deck  throughout the day and then it moves inside about 5 p.m. with someone  playing a piano, or a string quartet will be playing, or a sole singer strumming a guitar will sing songs of our youth (that would be gonzo geezer youth, you recall). 

And the guests, well, they dance.  Some dance at the pool in their swimwear. They dance in the late afternoon, some dance at noon in the middle of the ship when the dance lessons are offered, some dance the evening away.  We headed to the cabin last night at 10 and there were a number of folks (many older than us) just starting to kick up their heels.

The BIG entertainment is that which takes place in the theater – and we have had some fabulous shows (sorry, HAL, but the entertainment on board is better than our Holland America cruises).  Last night we had a variety show as many of the performers leave the ship in the Azores and new performers join us. 

We said goodbye to a favorite – and one we hope to see on stage in London some future visit because he’s been in plenty of musicals there to date – and that was Paul Baker. He’ll be joining another Celebrity ship and sometimes can be found on Crystal ships.

Our ship is so much fun that our captain, and that would be Captain Gerry Larsson-Fedde, who has brought us safely across the Atlantic, left the bridge last night and picked up his electric guitar and joined one of our singing groups on stage. I don’t need tell you that he brought the house down, do I?

A day at sea tomorrow and nNew entertainment tonight. . .I’ve got to go rest. . .more soon.

Bom Dia from the Azores!

We caught our first glimpse of land today about 6:30 a.m. and were cleared to go ashore on the island of Sao Miguel by 8 a.m. 

We logged about 7.5 miles wandering the cobbled black and white mosaic streets, visiting parks and churches in its Ponta Delgado – about the only thing open on a Sunday in this town of 21,000. Ponta Delgado has been the capital since 1546.

Off in the distance the hillsides are a lush green (no wonder it is the isla verde).  We were advised not to buy their famous pineapples or any other fruit or vegetable as it wouldn’t be allowed to be brought on board, so will have to rely on tourist publications that tell us this pineapple is a ‘prized commodity’.

Mid-morning was a bit too early to try their white wine, vino verde, (also known for it, we are told) so will have to wait until some future stop to try it.

I must tell you that as much as we love sea days it was nice to walk on terra firma again.  And it seemed strange to hear the roar of jet engines on planes taking off and to hear the noise of cars and motorcycles again.

A Sea foam and Sapphire Saturday

Being on the sea is the selling point for us on transatlantic cruises; days of endless sea foam blanketing sapphire water with lace coverings. That, and then not having anything that requires our attention beyond those ever-changing patterns, well, of course there are always the decisions about entertainment, activities and eating, but more on those later. 

(And even those stormy slate-gray waves we’ve had for three days have  been interesting to watch).

If we thought ‘sea days’ had gone too fast on previous crossings on Holland America ships, they were nothing compared to the speed this week has zipped away. Here we are on our sixth and final day of crossing the Atlantic. The captain tells us we are now 2,535 nautical miles fom Florida and 336 nautical miles from our first port of call, Ponta Delgada, the capital of  Sao Miguel, the largest island of the mid-Atlantic Azores and the greenest of them.

Legend has it that the Azores are that of the lost city of Atlantis (of course, we have heard that in Greece and just yesterday heard a lecture in which we learned theorists think Atlantis might be in the Bermuda Triangle somewhere.)

Twixt Twain and Us: The Transatlantic

We’re mid-way across the Atlantic Ocean now and for the last couple of our days, our 122,000 ton ship has been buffeted by gusting  35 mph winds and traveling through 10 – 15 foot waves. Stacks of  seasick bags (that look identical to those bags found in airline seat pockets) are readily available. Luckil, we've not needed them.

We’ve bumped into a few fellow passengers (pun intended) as we’ve made our way around each day. Speaking of our fellow passengers there are 2,749 of us on board, a wee bit less than capacity ( 2,850) and we have 42 nationalities represented.
Solstice, our floating home for two weeks, (the size of  three-football fields placed end-to-end and 60-meters tall) entered calm waters (photo on left) on Sunday but the ocean has gotten rougher as the days have gone by. Even with the six-meter stabilizers out on both sides of the ship we’ve been a rockin’ –n- rollin’.  (BTW, the ‘H ‘on the ship’s deck in the photo is the helicopter landing pad.) 

Considering the bounce we’ve experienced, we’ve been speculating on Mark Twain’s journey, described in his book The Innocents Abroad, that began with a 10-day Atlantic crossing in which he describes many storms and very seasick passengers.

Twain's journey to Europe aboard the steamship “Quaker City” began on June 8,1867  in New York.  He describes the trip, that was to last several months, as ‘the first organized pleasure party ever assembled for a transatlantic voyage.’ 

I doubt any of his 149 fellow passengers had any idea that they were kicking off what would become a billion dollar cruise industry. The cost of their passage was $1,250 per person, more than we are paying and certainly a considerable amount of money in those days. And being able to buy a ticket  didn’t get you on the ship – you had to apply and be approved by the Committee on Selecting Steamer. In contrast we just reserved space this morning on a Celebrity cruise in Nov. 2012 – with no more information required than our names and a credit card.

Promotional material provided those passengers  assured them that the ship would have every comfort including, a library, musical instruments and ‘an experienced physician’.

Suppose they would like the glass blowing demonstrations and live lawn sports that our ship features?  Or our theatre that seats hundreds of passengers on multi levels?  We have a number of musical groups –very good ones, I might add – on board providing cabaret type shows, theatrical performances, poolside entertainment. . .whew, and I’ve just gotten started. . . there are cooking demonstrations, wine classes, art auctions, exercise classes. . .in fact it is time to head out now. . .there’s a lecture starting soon!