Photo credit: Carol Madigan

   As Carol had already confirmed there was nothing in particular she wanted to see here, I’d hoped Madrid would offer a respite from the Sturm und Drang of sightseeing. We were headed for Toledo today, but that was going to be a Hop On Hop Off bus ride, which is a preferred means of sightseeing, compared to the traditional method of walking and gawking. Nevertheless,  the day managed to sling a couple of knuckle curves to make it seem more like an audio guided tour of the entire Prado.

“Except, unfortunately, for the cathedral (Santa Iglesia) which seemed to sit all the way down at the very base of the steep hill that the rest of the city sat atop. The way down was fine, the way back up was not. We were both gassed and had reaffirmed our agnosticism toward all religious icons upon reaching our bus stop back to the train station.”

   First, we arrived quite early for our expected 12:15 train to Toledo, only to find that the first available was 1:45. Turned out we needed some of that extra time for me to (once again) have to wrangle with card security that had slapped a block on my backup credit card. (Having had to deal with these blocks on every international trip we’ve taken since 2019, I’d added a second card as back up. It’s the backup card that’s been blocked twice in a row now.) Particularly galling is that I’ve prudently taken the extra step of adding travel notifications to all my cards before each trip. Yet, after confirming I would be in Spain, I was to discover that a charge for a hotel, a train and an Uber ALL IN SPAIN! were the reasons for the current block. Once I got it unblocked, I vowed to use that card for every incidental purpose down to a bag of chips out of a vending machine just for spite.

   Carol and I had both been to Toledo before, so this trip was more about the nostalgia of revisiting sites from our memories and made it a more pleasant experience. Except, unfortunately, for the cathedral (Santa Iglesia) which seemed to sit all the way down at the very base of the steep hill that the rest of the city sat atop. The way down was fine, the way back up was not. We were both gassed and had reaffirmed our agnosticism toward all religious icons upon reaching our bus stop back to the train station. We had reserved seats and were almost two hours early for our train. Unfortunately, the ticket office was closed, so we couldn’t negotiate an exchange for an earlier train. Fortunately, the station’s café was open for business, and we were able to enjoy the arrivals and departures over several glasses of a drinkable chilled white. There was leftover pizza at home for dinner, and I was looking forward in the morning to our last day in Madrid with nothing at all on the agenda. Carol and Rick Steves, as I was to find out over breakfast in the morning, had other ideas for the day.

UPDATE:

As May 23rd, 2023 marks the sixth anniversary of Carolyn’s passing, I’m proud (and still a little verklempt) to pass on the following announcement:

In 2022–2023, the Carolyn Kay Marquardt ‘Go See Stuff’ Endowed Fund was awarded to the following student:

Akiva Gray Adva Lippert ’23, Tacoma, Washington, German studies major and economics and computer science double minor will be studying abroad this summer in Berlin and Israel.

Godspeed Akiva and continued Godspeed Carolyn. Love you.