My long weekend in Madrid - Day 2 (morning) - On the way to the city centre; Plaza Mayor and along Calle de la Sal - The 19th of February 2016

We all got up fairly early and  were once more greeted by a morning breakfast prepared by Maravillas, who seemed particularly happy with having two extra guests.

We finally managed to see a bit of the neighbourghood we were staying at on the way to the Southern line metro heading to the city centre with  well trimmed garden areas lined by beautiful two storey houses.

Once we reached Sol we walked towards Plaza Mayor in search of the Tourist office so as to collect a city map, as we envisaged we would be strolling around the city quite a lot. We couldn't help photographing the 1988 Carlos Franco's paintings depicting mythical figures interwoven into the history of Madrid which cover the entire façades of the Casa de la Panaderia.

They clearly draw people's attention as we walk onto the majestic square which witnessed various public executions in the past.

Street artists were to be seen everywhere as well as numerous groups of tourists, undoubtedly happy with the sunny weather I don't think any of us had been expecting.

We soon strolled along Calle de la Sal so as to get onto the Sol metro heading to Iglesia where we would be visiting the Sorolla House Museum.

(To be continued)

My long weekend in Madrid - Day 1 (evening) - Atocha Train station; dinner at Maravillas' s in Conservatorio, Southern Madrid - The 18th of February 2016

Having accepted an invitation to stay at one of Mia's friends in Madrid Mia and I headed to our meeting point at Atocha train station soon after we landed at Barajas Adolfo Suaréz airport despite the fact that it was still quite early.

Barajas  airport painted wall

Photos of the Cibelles' square taken from the airport bus

I had been to Atocha train station several times before but because of some huge baby face sculptures standing outside one of its main entrances I didn't recognise it immediately. Once inside the layout was obviously the same though there were quite a few statues spread around that hadn't been there before.

We walked about for half an hour till we finally met Carmen. We had to catch a Renfe train and then the Southern metro so as to reach her mother's house in the Conservatorio area, where we would be staying for the next two days.

Maravillas, Carmen's mother, greeted us with an incredibly tasty dinner, after which we went to bed not only because it was fairly late already but also because we all seemed to be tired for different reasons.

On the latest film I have watched ...

I have been to see Room,  a work of fiction based on the novel by Emma Donoghue, though one can't help but think of similar stories that have occurred not so long ago, such as the Fritzl case in Austria and the Castro one in Ohio.

Most of the film is set in a 3 by 3 metre soundproof room where the main characters, mother and son, have been held captive and spent the last years of their lives (seven in the case of the mother and five in the case of the young man).

So as to "protect" him the mother has led him to believe there is nothing beyond those four walls, within which they have strengthened their bond and ultimately managed to be creative,  as creative as one can be with limited resources and a prospect of happiness that is  almost exclusively dependant on their love for each other.

What follows after they have eventually been able to  escape offers a rather intense sequence of scenes in which each of them tries to adjust to a completely different type of life and in the case of the mother a life she was unwillingly forced to leave behind as an adolescent.

Being told from the child's perspective Room is a very intense film, which makes us ponder a lot of side issues, which go well beyond the depicted situation.  The intensity of the film is reinforced by both the mother and son's interpretations which are outstanding and clearly second to none having as a consequence received  a well deserved worldwide appraisal.

"Ultimately serves as a life-affirming evocation of the durability and resilience of the human spirit. Brilliant" - Paul Mount

The latest book I have read ...

George Orwell's 1937 non-fiction book The road to Wigan Pier whose first part chronicles his experience among the miners' lives in the Northern part of England with its second part more of an essay approach on Socialism has left me astounded, not only because of the relevance many of the issues raised still resonate today but mostly because of the insightful, detailed, compassionate and direct way in which he addresses them.

 

 

I regret not having acknowledged his brilliancy when I was at University, possibly because I was too young to fully understand the context and strength of his words, though I recognise it is never too late to further explore what one wasn't able to at a younger age.

 

 

" A searing account of George Orwell's experiences of workingclass life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire, The road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant and bitter polemic that lost none of its political impact over time. His graphically unforgettable descriptions of social injustice, slum housing, mining conditions, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment are written with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity."