Return to Madrid

We were very tired when we arrived in Madrid.  It had been a long trip with the extra new stress of looking after the baby.  There was a pile of stuff that needed to be cleaned.  There were dirty clothes.  Bags needed to be unpacked.    

None of this seemed to matter though.  Veronica and I were both too excited to care much about any of that.  We were in Madrid and we wanted to explore and to enjoy the city.

We put on our jackets, made sure baby was nice and warm, then went out to see the city.

It had been more than ten years since I had been in Madrid.  I had very fond memories of the city.  I remembered it feeling busy and lively.  It had been cooler then, but now it was cold.  Our hotel was perfectly placed in the centre of Madrid at Plaza del Callao.  It meant it was easy for us to constantly pop in and out whenever we needed, something particularly important now we had the baby with us.  Whilst it was cold, the small glimpses of spring had begun and new blossoms were on all the trees.

We walked down to Puerta del Sol.  It was exactly as a remembered it, though with less buskers.  We felt nothing but happiness walking through the city.  For me, all the great memories I had still seemed to hold true.  The energy of the place was as I remembered and there was a friendliness each place we went.  Most people seemed shocked to see the baby as well.  Children were common, but the sight of such a tiny asian baby must have been something more out of the ordinary. 

The weather suddenly turned even colder.  We had walked over to Plaza Mayor when I noticed small flecks of snow settling on the baby's clothes.  I looked up at the sky and I could see a small flurry of snow falling.  It was late March, so this felt strange.  I later asked some locals who told me that it was indeed a bizarre time of year and that only a couple of weeks earlier the temperatures had been in the 20s.  We weren't too concerned by any of it.  I was slightly undressed for snow, but Veronica had made sure that the baby had all the necessary clothes to be comfortable in this weather.  Since the weather was still feeling fresh, we decided to go for a longer walk and made our way to Retiro Park.

This brought back far more memories.

When I had last visited with Phil, he had arranged an Airbnb for us near this park and so we had explored it extensively.  It was a strange feeling to now be walking through the grounds again with my family.  With the cooler weather, it was a bit more subdued, but there were still plenty of people enjoying themselves.

It was a strange mix of nostalgia and excitement that I was feeling.  There was such an intense familiarity to everything.  I was very odd given my previous visit had only been for a few days.  With Veronica and the baby, everything felt so much more special now as well.  The old memories started to fade, overtaken by the new experiences we were having.  

It was only the beginning of the trip, but I was already quietly confident that taking the risk to travel would be correct decision for us all.