Remembering Madrid, Part 2
Halfway through my studies in Salamanca in the summer of 2004, I went to Madrid for one weekend and just visited the places I used to see all the time and frankly taken for granted while I lived there. On this visit, I took pictures just to remind me of them.
At the metro station Islas Filipinas. I never, not even once, went into to this station nor came out of it in all the time I lived in Madrid for over three years. It just wasn't close to where I lived. Anyway, I was glad Madrid named this station, Islas Filipinas, or Philippine Islands in English. We were after all once a colony and for almost 400 years at that.
This was where I lived for almost two years. Calle Fernando Garrido.
The Museo Sorolla
Come to think of it, I made a special trip to this museum from Salamanca thinking I had not seen it yet only to realize I did twice while I was still living in Madrid and going to school at the Instituto de Cooperacion Iberoamericana.
La Vaguada, the only mall in Madrid, back in the late eighties and early nineties, in the Barrio del Pilar area. I used to teach English in a language academy nearby and the Spanish students I used to tutor privately lived in this area.
Hostal Chocolate, the hostal where I lived during my first year in Madrid as a scholar of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was on the Calle Guzman el Bueno side
This was another entrance to Hostal Chocolate on Calle Joaquin Ma. Lopez
The corner of Calle Cea Bermudez and Calle Guzman el Bueno with an artsy sculpture. This was built after I had left Spain for the US.
Atocha Train Station. This was the site of the March 11 terrorist bombing in Madrid. Things had calmed down when I went in 2004 although my dad was against the trip when I talked to him over the phone and told him about it.
The Neptune's fountain in front of the Atocha Train Station
The façade of the Atocha Train Station. Marvi, a former room mate, and I first took a train from this station when we visited Avila for a weekend in the fall of 1987.
The Reina Sofia Museum near the Atocha Train Station
The Reina Sofia Museum
The Thyssen Bornemisza Museum
The Hotel Arosa right above the Casa de Libros along the Gran Via. I chose this hotel for its very central location when I returned to Spain to resume my studies in Salamanca in 2004.