9-29 Madrid at Night

 Tuesday night we saved our energy for the evening and didn't leave the apartment until 7:15pm.  We took an Uber to a very popular area to take photos in the dark.  

One photo from the day.  We had to go out to get Euros to pay for our apartment in El Campello.  

Our first location.  This time after the sun has almost set until it actually gets dark is called the blue time.  I am not crazy about the look - but here are a few photos.

The Puerta de Alcala which is located in the Plaza de la Independencia. 

We walked all around the arch and took photos.

Still in the blue hour and cars are blurred.

Back where we started. 

Getting dark.

Now we are heading back to our apartment.  

The Metropolis building.

We ran into several musical groups.  I heard an accordion playing Halleluiah early.

Then we entered the Puerta Del Sol plaza.  It seemed a small protest was going on.

We saw this group up on a higher level leading the crowd chants.

We thought that if we went around the outside of the crowd we would be able to move on.

This is a very famous sign in this square.

Then we started to realize that this was much bigger than we thought.  There were so many people around - then we saw lots of tents and people really settled in.

We are try to get around the edge of the crowd.  There is no edge.  We are fighting to get through the crowd - other people seem to be trying to get through everyone going the other way.  So it was a fight.  We were in exactly the perfect situation where pick-pockets excel at what they do.  All we wanted was to get out of there.  At least it was not like many years ago in Chicago at the Chicago Eats festival.  I remember then being in the crowd and not being able to move at all.  The crowd wanting to go up verses the crowd moving down was equal - and nobody moved!

We did finally get out - and later I looked up what was going on.  It is an on-going protest in the Puerta Del Sol plaza.  An 87 year old pensioner was evicted from her apartment after rents were raised beyond her ability to pay.  So the protest is for stronger tenant protections and action against housing costs.  It is just getting larger and larger.  We will avoid this plaza  from now on.  As I remember from the 70's most of the protesters are young people.

We finally found a way out on a side street.  We passed a theatre.

These windows are from a store that sells outfits for dancing.

Later along our walk we found this street.  A restaurant - but also a building where the lights in the building change colors.

A watch shop.

Back in Mayor Plaza

It doesn't show up that well - but I loved the couple up on like the third floor sitting on their balcony.

We don't have time to try the Ethiopian Restaurant.

At that same restaurant in the kitchen!

Back in our neighborhood.

And than we are headed home.  I can't believe we stayed out until 10:30PM.  It took a long time to relax and actually go to bed.  A great evening!

9/28 Madrid - First Day

 We arrived in Madrid last night.  Our "Welcome Taxi" driver spoke quite good English so going to pick up our key from a location about 10 minutes away from the apartment location turned out to not be a problem.  He waited as Michael used a code to retrieve the key from a lock box padlocked to bars on a window.  That's a first for us.  

There is a DIA grocery store close to us where we picked up bread ham, cheese, fruit etc for a French picnic meal for Sunday night and breakfasts for the next three days.  The nights are very quiet in the apartment.

Photo from around 7AM of the street below us - it is still pretty dark.  We are on the 4th floor or 5 for US - as they start with the first floor as being 0.

        We finally got out the door around late morning on Monday.  The skies are dark and overcast.  It makes for moody photos.

Our apartment is close to some major tourist attractions.  But also we are in a "lived in" neighborhood.  There are a lot of schools close to us.  Every store that you might need is within walking distance.

We started exploring the streets around us.

We passed by this couple on a bench.  The man seemed to be explaining something to the women as the other two men filmed them.

Just behind them was a door to this garden called Jardin del Principi Anglona.

Garden scene.

And on to more street scenes.

Couple in front of doors to a church.

Mosaics on a restaurant's walls.

We were headed towards Plaza Mayor - just through that archway.

Plaza Mayor.  

I was trying to take a photo of Casa de la Panadería which is a municipal and cultural building on the north side of the square.

We left plaza Mayor to head towards the Palace.  I think this is some ruins in a vacant lot.  But there is a lot of graffiti in front of it.

We wondered into the Plaza Isabel II where we found a restaurant with a menu of the day for $18 Euros each.

A lot of streets now have these nice identifying plaques.  As we finished out lunch it started raining.  We could see out the restaurant window that a lot of tourists were not prepared for rain.  Do people not check the weather app?  We walked briefly to the square in front of the palace and then decided to head home as the rain was coming down steadily.  No photos - it is very hard to hold an umbrella and focus your camera with out shake!

I could not resist stopping to take a phone photo of this guy.  His butt has been touched until it is burnished gold!

As I was photo'ing - A tour of Asians passed by.  Several of the tourists touched the statue on his shoulder or where ever - giggling as they did so.  But this guy did the deed!