I am in Madrid!  Arrived around 7 AM this morning, which was around 10 PM L.A. time.  Madrid airport is like a beautiful, enclosed city so I didn´t get out of there for at least an hour, but was able to get right on the metro which brought me to the train station.  No seats on any of the trains heading to Pamplona, so I had my first adjustment to my schedule.  I started to find out about getting a bus there, but it is a 3-hour train ride, so who knows how long a bus would take, plus, just getting to the bus station was another couple of metro lines away, with no garuantee that there would actually be a bus, or any tickets.  As  I wandered around the train station forming a plan B, it appeared in the form of a sign pointing to the name of the street outside the station: Paseo del Prado.  My plan B was to find a place to stay and visit the Prado.  Not too shabby, as plan B´s go! 

Found a pensione right across from the Prado.  It was an easy process of elimination: I went there first, and the only thing wrong with it was that it smelled of cigarettes.  I was just starting to look around so I didn´t realize yet that these people looooove their cigarettes!  No shame in smoking, not like in L.A. where smokers are constantly exiled to, well, thier own homes, basically.  You never see anyone walking down the street smoking, but here, you almost never see anyone NOT smoking.  Only kids in strollers, actually.  I´m sure that just has to do wtih their fine motor skills not being fully developed yet.  Spanish moms probably brag to each other about how quickly thier kids learn to smoke...´´Paolo was walking at 18 months and smoking by 2´´, or something like that.  Anyway,  there were problems with the other pensiones on my list from the tourist office.  Namely, one had no lights on in the hallway as I started to walk up to the 4th floor, and the other one had someone sleeping in the doorway, so that first one smelling like cigarettes was the hands down winner.  The people there are very nice, and haven´t burst out laughing at my very rough Spanish.  I think I probably don´t sound so funny, just totally inept, and possibly even insulting to the sensibilities.  With all my starts and stops and words that I insert into my sentences even though they are English or Italian, I probably end up making it sound like someone who took a page of written text, tore it into little pieces, then arbitrarily picked up pieces and stammered as they read the words or phrases.

The Prado is beautiful and it really does give me a thrill to see the masterpieces that I studied in art class.  In the program that you pick up when you enter, they actually list their masterpieces, including Fra Angelico´s The Annunciation, The Three Graces (Rubens) and Goya´s The Naked Maja.  They list 50 Masterpieces.  Fifty!  Doesn´t that seem like a lot?!!  It did to me, especially when you see how the masterpieces are in rooms that are chock full of other amazing paintings, and room after room of sculpture.  I hope they are sharing with other countries that may not have as much.  My absolute favorite part of the Prado was a sculpture.  I entered a large room after many smaller rooms full of paintings.  So it was a shock to suddenly see a sculpture in the middle of the room, especially because it was a nude, whose buttocks were pointing right at one and all who entered through the same door that I had.  The thought actually crossed my mind that this is one way to keep young people/guys interested in art.  The sculpture is beautiful, a there are beautiful curves in the form, lying on it´s stomach, which is why the buttocks really are ´featured´if you will.  I walked up to see the artist, and imagine my surprise to find out the name of the piece: ´´Hermafrodito´´.  Am I going out on a limb to do a direct translation?  I think I am probably not the only person to be surprised by that!  It reminded me of when I taught comedy traffic school years ago and I had a male model in my class (no, I´m not talking about Bill!) who said he was a butt double  and proceeded to list all the movie stars he had doubled for.  At the end of his list, he added, almost as an aside, that he also did Victoria´s Secret catalogue ads, too.  Well, there was an immediate gag reflex from every guy in the class, who swore they would never look at one again.  This reminded me of that...

Anyway, my new plan is to go to bed at 6 and wake up at 6 to get on the first train to Pamplona in the morning.  I hope to be in St. Jean Pied de Port by tomorrow afternoon.  It´s good that today was a little bumpy.  I got to practice being flexible.  Kind of like a yoga class for my camino experience.  Thank you to everyone who is reading this-you have undoubtedly given me encouragement about this journey and I used it this morning! 
Peace and blessings-
annie