water, a jigsaw puzzle from the nations nashville neighborhood

 The Nations Nashville "water"

Just found a neat way to indulge a strange habit of mine! I walk my dog every day and we love to see patterns in our neighborhood. It can take dozens of finds to compile a single montage of a theme, and the first one I've compiled features what I believe the next world war will be fought over. I worked hard on it and sent one to Shutterstock for printing, but the iPhone resolution can't be made high enough to do the montage pixel justice. Just today, I found Jigsaw Planet; and here's the first installment , the pics compiled in Powerpoint and saved as a .jpg. More to come on this blog. I remain in search of a platform that doesn't require that I yield rights to my work, but it's really just a fun hobby at the moment and I'm not really concerned with that at the mo'. I also think that those folks deserve whatever they can earn for creating such a fun and easy to use content creation platform!

Tip: Challenge yourself (or make it easier) by changing the number of pieces with the "Play As" function on the site!

30

Cordoba and Sevilla Day 1: (Spain Part V)

 OkaaaaaaAAY,

If you have read this far, please forgive me for rambling. If you intend to read further, please extend your forgiveness into that furtherness. It's taken me over seven decades to develop my voice, and whether you like it or would rather leave it, it's my voice. I love you either way.

Speaking of love, we felt a lot of it in Spain. As I may have mentioned, we had few to none encounters with crankiness, rudeness, or fear in our three weeks in España. It took until our arrival at the airport in Chicago on our way home to meet admittedly overworked, underpaid, and clearly unhappy service people. We also had our first egregiously overpriced food and beverage there. But that's for later. Now's for now!

The train ride:

We packed up the next morning since we had until 11:00 to meet our driver. Yes, another very nice black-suited man in a new black Mercedez. A note about packing and transitions: my wife is great at the former, and surprisingly great at the latter on our trip. We travel exceedingly well together. I hope to do more of it. Our next trip will be a week in Denver at Christmastime, and both our grown children and both of their partners, their people, will also be there at Jim and Amy's historic home across from University Park. But I digress. Lee Ann had purchased packing bags into which we could separate shirts, shorts, undergarments, etc. for easy packing and unpacking. It works like a charm and I highly recommend it. For our 3 weeks, I carried a backpack and she a carry-on and we had two large zippered pieces of luggage. I also carried a gig bag containing my Kala tenor ukulele, which I did play of an evening once in a while. 

View out our window as we left the vast plains of Spain and neared the south-central hill country 

A final and predictably delicious breakfast in the room off the courtyard, and we headed out to the lobby where we met our driver and headed just a mile or two away from the hotel to the train station. For the uninitiated, we learned by doing. There was no gate number on our travel information and there's a reason for that: gates are not announced until 30-20 minutes before boarding. I don't know exactly how that gate assignment gig works, but I am certain I never want to have to do it! After asking someone in a uniform, we learned that crucial fact and chilled out before a monitor screen until our gate was announced. In Madrid one has to get to the gate with one's luggage, queue up in a line once the destination's gate is announced, then get down a 45 degree escalator with it all and into the assigned train car. We did so, and were seated in our premium seats, ready to go. Here's the text from our travel info:

Note: There is NO luggage assistance to help with your luggage inside or outside the train at Madrid-Puerta de Atocha train station. Your driver cannot access the platform without a valid train ticket.

It was true, but like anything, the second time we would do it, it was much easier. Something about undone experiences and their done "next times," yes? 

Trainfood, eggplant, tasted a little better than it looked and kept me alive

The two hour train ride was largely uneventful but absolutely beautiful. It reminded me a little of the UHaul truck drive my son Colin and I had experienced the previous summer, with the vast plains, agricultural vistas turning hilly and inspirational in scope; and I slept a little, listened to my book (Dragonfly in Amber from the Outlander series--big recommend) with airpods from my phone. It is in fact a high speed train, but caveat: it stops frequently along its route. In relatively short order we were in Cordoba. 

Off the train we were greeted by a porter with a cart and our guide for the day, Carmen. She was in character and professionalism similar to our other wonderful guides, and I doubt if I will ever hear the word "jello" without remembering her. Explanation to come.

First stop, Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, "Castle of the Christian Monarchs".

After winding our way through the castle, which contains some reconstructed murals originally created as flooring, on the walls, we toured the garden.

We left the garden and strolled up the street by the river to view the ancient Roman bridge built there. 

Then we made our way past the former gate into Cordoba, where we took a comprehensive tour of the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. There are some great pics in the Wikipedia article, but I want to share this one, snapped by Carmen:

Not on Wikipedia, this little huggy pic hints at the majesty of the architecture, containing substantial stylistic contributions from Visigoths, Romans, and finally, Christians.

We learned that it was one of the first sites of the Spanish Inquisition and that its construction as a fortress for the Goths began in the year 785. It underwent many changes and additions as the various cultures controlled the city. Carmen also took us through the Jewish neighborhood. Cordoba has a long history and it is nothing short of fascinating. 

Oh, Jello: When we were walking up into the city from the river and the famed Roman Bridge, Carmen noted that the walls and streets all had a yellow tint, from the clay by the river that was used to construct them. "I love the jello, everywhere," she said. It made us smile every time she said it that way!

We parted ways with Carmen a few blocks later, and our driver, cordial and pleasant and knowledgeable, hauled us on into Sevilla, where we checked into opulence. A pic of the lobby and the courtyard in our hotel, which we would love, where I took my first picture in Sevilla:

Lobby of the Alfonso XIII, a Luxury Collection Hotel (5*)

I will pick back up next post with our hotel and evening in Sevilla, and continue on into the following day of our trip of a lifetime. Stay well, safe, and spoil yourself. This from a couple who has done it. Cheers.

Madrid Day 4 (Spain: Part IV)

I awakened late, for me, on June 1. It was a beautiful sunny Thursday morning, our fourth day in España.

Lee Ann lay buried in the luxurious zillion count sheets of our king-sized bed. Well, it was actually two doubles pushed together with a bigger-than-king-size mattress pad. I spent some time at the little balcony enjoying the street sounds and watching folks across the tiny street awakening and opening their own balconies to the glory of their city. Stretching, breathing the air thousands of miles away from my native Tennessee. 

The balconies in Spanish cities are small affairs, perhaps 18 inches deep and a little wider than the doors and their windows. I don't recall who mentioned it first, it was likely our Pablo, but some structures have rounded bottom railings to accommodate the puffy dresses of the aristocracy. The other thing I learned is that if you look up, they recede every so slightly in from the street from the second floor to the top. This is to let in the light, as streets in the city centers, the oldest parts of the city, are very narrow. It was also interesting that the lower floors were the most prestigious, as they afforded more visibility on their balconies during pageants or  other events that brought city dwellers into the streets. This is particularly evident in the many squares peppering the city centers.

We took our time freshening up and enjoying the luxurious bathroom design, which featured a luxurious (there's that word again) bathtub with a shower encased in a glass chamber through which one could see the opulent bathroom. 

Bathroom bliss at Palacio de los Duques Gran Melia in Madrid

We had nowhere we had to be until 7:45, when we would meet up with Beltran in the lobby for a tapas hop around the city. So our second breakfast it was, and we took it in a different room, which bordered a lovely inner courtyard garden which later would be filled with conference attendees in socializing mode. This morning we couldn't help but notice that the crisply uniformed servers all very pretty women, wore their hair in uniform tight buns; and all of them, to a one, carried an air reminiscent of the pretties in the classic Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" video. This would be magnified when what looked like outside talent hostesses appeared when the Fortune 500 conference moved in that night, and those women, uniformly tall and brunette, all wore tight black uniforms and deep red lipstick. That song was in my head for the rest of the week, until it was erased by the beauty of San Sebastian. WARNING: Don't click the link in that title or it will be in yours all day.

Back up at the room, we made a plan for the day. We had purposely made this day a "day of leisure" to explore on our own and get a nap after an early snack dinner to shake off our jet lag and prep for our tapas adventure. It was in the low 80s and sunny, and explore we did. Pablo had told us that though the marketplace in the Old City was inarguably historic and interesting, there was one in another part of the city that the nannies and mothers shopped which was worth exploring for its lush wares, so we took a cab to Mercado de la Paz, walked around there, marveling at the fresh food, and then walked back to to hotel through the park, where a huge book fair was taking place, with hundreds of publisher stalls and hundreds of people. All the books were, of course, en Español. 

From Mercado de la Paz. Beautiful stuff.

"once a fish"

At the hotel, down we went for another little nap after playing the only games of Bananagrams we would play on the trip. I, of course, lost every game.

Up from our nap, we dressed, got presentable, and headed downstairs to meet our guide for our next scheduled event, "Evening Tapas Tasting with a Local Insider." Beltran Caruncho is another charming human--gracious, well spoken, and knowledgeable to a tee. He took us to four places for four very different dining experiences. He had planned to pass through the open market but decided to pass since we had already been through it on our own. That would allow us more time at the other destinations. They were: 1) Sala De Espiece, 2) XXXXXXXX  3) Restaurante La Castela, and 3) Taberna & Media.

Briefly now, Scotty me boyo, briefly:

Beltran, our guide par excellence!

Sala De Despiece was so brilliantly alive that if it had not been for Beltran we may have been completely overwhelmed. He described the restaurant, the clientele (apparently completely local excepting ourselves ) as we drank our beverages and could not stop smiling. We sipped a class of wine or two while we were pampered as celebrities down at the far interior by a tapas creation station. It all shows in the Google album I made just of the Beltran tapas hop because we had a great deal of pic and some interesting video from that night. 

Our second tasting was at the vibrant hot spot El Doble. It was casual, bustling, bright, loud, and jovial, and the garlic butter sauteed shrimp was to die for. Beltran told us that locals called the torn fresh bread we called (in Tennessee parlance) a "soppy," a "Spanish submarine." Hilarious, and omg delicious. Here's a good time for you to open that google album, if you have not thus far. You'll see that shrimp I mentioned and hear the din yourself! FUN. 

Lee Ann opined that the owner looked a little grumpy, and Beltran agreed, adding that he only smiles when posing for pictures with customers/admirers. I'm not sure because I see he smiles a bit in the video and he was immensely gracious when asked for a pic. Here's that admirers food groupies photo with us and Jesus! :)

Big smiles at El Doble

From there we walked to Restaurante La Castela, Beltran telling us about the Michelle Obama visit in 2016. She wanted local tapas and refused to allow Security to clear the place out for her visit. She wanted to dine with the people and feel that oh so comfy vibe that the place is famous for. There are pics from our dining there, and a couple good videos, at the Google album of the Beltran tapas hop, but here's one memorable snap behind the bar just before we departed. I recall we had oxtail for the first time; but, for sure, not the last!

The crew at La Castela!

We closed our night out around midnight, at the bar at another popular tapas foodery nearby. Amazingly, it was full at midnight. Not amazing to Beltran, since a portion of the culinary-loving Madrid population is just midway through their own tapas hops around that time. I honestly have no memory of what we ate there. We may have just had a cocktail, a night-hat, a closer. There was a full restaurant, cozy as can be, around the corner from the bar, but we sat at the bar and debriefed with our new best friend Beltran. It had been lovely. 

We parted ways, grabbed a cab back to the land of the giant Velasqueses, maybe watched some of The Diplomat on Lee Ann's laptop (an aside: most of the hotels we stayed in had clunky interfaces for streaming media on the room displays. Be sure to have several electrical convertors if you venture to Spain (and a you-friendly laptop for media). We snuggled together and slipped into dreamland.

Tomorrow we would be Leaving on a Jet Train. JK, but listen, just for fun. No: we would be leaving on a high-speed train ride to Cordoba, then to Seville via automobile. Yes: another black Mercedes, another driver, two new guides, and another glorious couple of stops on that trip of our dreams.

Catch ya later.