All Good Things ....

.... must come to an end.
Sigh.
Tomorrow morning I head to the airport and then fly my way towards Texas. I am packed and ready. It's a little after midnight here, which seems to be the social hour around here. I'm pooped. I walked around by myself for a bit this afternoon. Son #1 had some English lessons to teach. So I wandered around for a while and then returned to the hotel to pack. We had dinner reservations at 8:00, the earliest you can make them in this city. It seems that we are weenies because we want to eat before 10:00 or even midnight. No wonder nothing opens before 10:00 am and they all take a siesta from about 1:00 until 3:00 or 4:00. It's a totally different culture, that's for sure.
I'm sad to be leaving tomorrow. I really love it here and would love to come back for a longer period of time. Maybe I'll call House Hunters International and find an apartment to rent. I think this would be a fabulous place to just hang out and maybe write a book. Maybe.

Today was the biggest holiday of the year in Spain. Who knew? Definitely not me. It's called Dia de la Hispanidad and it's basically Columbus Day.
They had a huge parade, with military fly overs and tanks and stuff. It was really cool.
Son #1 and I happened to be in the right place at the right time and we got to see the King
and Queen of Spain. Too cool.

After that we went to one of the best museums in the world, the Prado. They had some great works there.
After spending a couple of hours there we left and he headed off to his lessons and I headed off to the hotel.
I have been frustrated by one thing .... I collect crosses from all over the world and I have not been able to find one here. For a city that considers itself the capitol of THE most
catholic country in the world, it's astounding that I can't find a single cross to hang up on my wall. Very,very strange. They didn't even have many crucifixes, either. But they have
TONS of knights and knightly paraphernalia. Whatever.
So ... that will now be the mission of Son #1 ..... to find his mother a cross before he comes home.

We ate dinner tonight at the world's oldest restaurant, I kid you not. Word has it that Hemmingway ate there often and Goya was a bus boy when he was young. If you doubt my info you can google El Botin. It's in the Guiness Book of Records. It was a cool restaurant. We got to eat down in the cellar. The food was very good and the ambience was great.

It's now past midnight so I need to turn in before I pass out over the keyboard.
This has been one of my favorite trips ever and I really do hope to cone back some day.

The next time you hear from me will probably be from the U.S. But you never now how bored I'll
be at the airport here .... Or how long I'll have to wait.

Take care, Peeps and Happy Wednesday!