The World's Smallest Lift?

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Issy gets up before me, which is a bit unusual. I've started to notice that this only happens on mornings when we're leaving somewhere, and she then makes sure that she packs and locks her suitcase before I do. I think she's working on the theory that if she forgets to pack something it will then have to go in my case. This is a very cunning ploy; she always seems to forget to pack something. I also seem to have inherited the large plastic bag with all our dirty clothes in it. Admittedly they're nearly all mine, but my suitcase is now starting to bulge at the seams.

The Toledo station still looks like a church. All the windows are stained glass, and it has the same sort of tower as every other church in Spain. There are some old ticket windows that they don't use any more that look like confessionals and the seats look like pews. The only thing missing is an altar. We get on the train for the short trip to Madrid.

The major feature of Madrid station is a huge tropical garden under a transparent canopy with massive palm trees that are as big as most we've seen outside anywhere else. There's also a pond under the canopy with hundreds of turtles in it. There's a sign on the glass barrier around the pond that says in Spanish something along the lines of you not being allowed to abandon your unwanted turtle by dumping it in the pond. Surely no one would be so cruel as to abandon their pet turtle.

We catch a taxi to our apartment, and are met by our host Maria who is a mine of useful information on what to do in Madrid. We catch the lift up to the apartment. Actually only a suitcase and I catch the lift up to the apartment. It's by far the smallest lift we've ever seen. Maria tells us that the apartment block was built in 1880. It originally just had a spiral staircase, and they've managed to keep the staircase by building the lift in the middle of the spiral. The sign inside the lift says that its maximum capacity is two people.

Our very cute apartment is on the top floor and has a terrace with views out over the surrounding buildings. The bedroom is a mattress on the floor in the roof space above the rest of the apartment, and if either of us sits up while we're in bed we'll bump our heads on the ceiling. I hope I don't have any vivid dreams while we're here.

We have a siesta, and then decide to head off along one of the routes around the city suggested by Maria. Issy gets in the lift first. When I try to get in I hit her nose with my camera bag which is hanging over my shoulder. I compress her nose a bit more as I move in further, and then find that if I take a deep breath we can just get the door to close.

Maria's route takes us through the very busy and crowded central shopping district, where it's hard to walk more than a couple of metres without running into someone. We continue on along the main street, Gran Via, and then on past the Royal Palace and the Cathedral. The Palace Gardens are massive and look very green and peaceful. Next stop is Plaza de Espana, the main feature of which is a statue of Miguel de Cervantes, with bronze statues of Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza at its base. This is apparently a Madrid icon.

We stop at a supermarket to get some supplies, and then somehow manage to both get in the lift with the supermarket bags. It's a squeeze, and I think the corn chips that we bought will look more like breadcrumbs when we get them out of the packet.

It's after 10 o'clock when we get around to looking for somewhere to eat dinner, and all the restaurants near the apartment are packed. We put our names on a waiting list. The menu at the restaurant we eventually get into is all in Spanish, and for the first time since we arrived in Spain we're struggling to understand enough of it to know what to order. The waiter doesn't speak any English, and the translator on Issy's phone is not very helpful. I think that it's struggling to understand its purpose in life; it seems to think that most of the words we want it to translate are the same in English as they are in Spanish. Issy orders octopus which comes with wasabe ice cream. She drools; I think that wasabe ice cream reminds her of raw fish. I decide that I'm hungry enough to eat three dishes, but I can only understand two items on the menu. I chose the third dish at random, and it turns out to be nice, even though we have no idea what's in it. Issy says that we should chose a dish at random from the menu every night.

Issy says that she's been getting some strange looks when she tries to say hello to people in Spanish. She tells me that she thought that "hola" and "ole" meant the same thing, so she's been using them interchangeably as a greeting. I tell her that "hola" means "hello", but I think "ole" means something along the lines of "congratulations on a wonderful performance". She says this might explain some of the strange looks.

We climb the stairs to our bed in the roof space. The stairs don't have a banister or a hand rail and Issy says that she's a bit worried about what might happen if she needs to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We leave a lot of lights on.

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