On Saturday morning we said goodbye to Salamanca and travelled south to the Spanish capital, Madrid. The town was almost deserted as we walked through it at 9am on the way to catch our train, and we were pleasantly surprised when we got to the station to find that the train itself was very quiet and peaceful too. The journey to Madrid took under three hours and took us first through the flat arable countryside which we had grown used to from our bus travels, before entering a more rocky landscape which became increasingly hilly until the train was winding its way through mountains. It was a very scenic route, and we had some tantalising glimpses of walled towns as the train sped past.
We arrived at Madrid's Chamartin station in the early afternoon and my plan was that we would leave our bags in a locker before having a stroll around and finding somewhere for lunch; we had some time to kill before we were allowed to check into our apartment at 3pm. We saw signs pointing to the luggage lockers almost immediately and followed them across the station concourse, out of a door, through a large car park, round a corner and back into the station building, only to realise that we were within a few metres of where we had originally started and the lockers were right in front of us. It all turned out to have been wasted exertion as with charges of €5.20 per suitcase it was more than we (/Tim!) felt like paying. Instead we formulated Plan B, which consisted of finding somewhere to eat in the station itself.
Happily Chamartin is a big station and we found somewhere without much difficulty. It was actually a proper restaurant, with a menu of the day which offered spaghetti carbonara as the first course and lasagne as the second course, so we were quite fortunate. We had a nice meal, complicated only by the fact that as soon as Tim stood up to go to the bathroom - leaving me unattended for a few minutes - I was approached by a slightly crazy old lady who was seemingly walking around the station collecting ringpulls off cans. At least it gave me the opportunity to utilise my only two words of Spanish: "No comprendo"!
The apartment we had booked was only 2km from the station so our plan was to walk. As we came out of the station building, however, we were confronted with a confusing array of bridges and highways which weren't easily identifiable on our (not very detailed) map. We made an attempt at walking in the correct direction but soon had to admit defeat and return to the station in search of a taxi.
When we checked into the apartment we were pleased to find that it had normal beds which didn't require folding down (yay!) and two separate air conditioning units. At an altitude of 667m, Madrid is the highest capital city in Europe and has very hot, dry summers, so we had a feeling we might be grateful for them.
We cooled down and relaxed in the apartment for a while before heading out to meet local Esperantist Jorge Camacho and his wife. By sheer good fortune we happened to be staying in an apartment near to the part of town where he lives, and posting some of our holiday photos from Bilbao on Facebook had alerted Spanish Esperantists to the fact that we were in Spain, making it possible for us to arrange a spontaneous meet-up.
It was exciting for us to experience an evening out in Madrid with locals. We went to a little bar first of all where we sat outside and drank beautiful white wine out of little goblets. We were amazed both at how reasonable the prices were and how much food we got for free! Every time someone bought a round of drinks we were given little plates of food to share; we started with pork scratchings, moved on to different types of potato in sauces and finished with my favourite which was fried potatoes and onions on bread. I may have accidentally eaten Tim's portion while he was inside checking the football score.
Later we moved on to a different bar where we were able to sit and eat. Our hosts kindly took on board our disinclination to eat fish and ordered a large plate of entrecote for us to share. Confusion ensued when they tried to explain to the waiter that we would like it without blood. When the meat arrived it was delicious; little pieces of beef which were still sizzling on the plate. We had bread and fried potatoes to accompany it, as well as some green peppers which we weren't brave enough to try. We finished the meal with some pieces of custard-filled pancake and a Basque liqueur made out of some sort of red berries. We were absolutely stuffed by the end but we had a great time and are very grateful to Jorge and Chen for such a lovely evening 
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