It’s even got penguins

Madrid’s Atocha train station now has to be among my favourite train stations in the world – at least in the Ottawacker Top 5, a list which includes Liverpool Lime Street (for nostalgia); Porto (where else can you see tiled frescos like that?), Armentières (I once got propositioned for a threesome by two of the most beautiful women I had ever seen – while my then girlfriend was buying a magazine in the Relay thirty seconds from me), and Břeclav (where my über-critical friend and best man and I (see yesterday’s entry) were almost abandoned in newly non-communist Czechoslovakia by Jiři, another friend who greatly influenced my teenage years and twenties. But that is another story.

But penguins. I’ve never seen that in a train station before, not ever.
I have been greatly affected by this Covid19 – and so, wandering around Madrid Barajas airport on my arrival, some 2 hours before said penguin sighting – I was not in the best of moods. Unlike my North American counterparts, the Spanish seem to be distinctly unparanoid about the upcoming extinction of humanity. As such, mask seem to be in a minority.

I looked for a SIM card for my newly acquired mobile/cell (I convinced myself that I had better not go all Trappist should I get sick) and found a wonderful bargain on sale at one of the kiosks. For the small price of 129 €, I could get a package that would allow me to communicate with my family and surf the web up to 24/hours a day until I ran out of minutes. I laughed. This seems to be a problem with Barajas though: it is populated by thieves.

Another example: the bureau de change. We take NO COMMISSION it proudly boasts. Having checked the exchange rates for Canadian and American dollars against the Euro before leaving, I was somewhat surprised to find they had either both dramatically collapsed during my flight. Or the NO COMMISSION was essentially because the exchange rate is 20¢ per Euro worse than you can get at a bank. To think I would live to see the day that I thought banks were honest.

Bus to the train station. Again, the casual Spanish attitude to Covid19 in full view. The bus was packed, and so the mask was worn. Madrid has an excellent transit system, and the bus divested itself of most travellers in the city centre, which allowed me a full and unfettered view of the sights as we travelled through.

And so to Atocha, and the penguins. And an absence of toilets in which to wash hands. So I went to a café called La Pausa and had a bacalao dish, carefully eating with knife and fork and wondering how I was going to get the fish bone out of my throat without putting my hand near my mouth (I used a napkin and thereafter ate much smaller pieces). After eating, I skyped home and noticed a constant stream of people going through a door, all using a code of some sort to get through. This could only mean one of two things: 1) drugs were being sold (somewhat risky, I thought, given the fact that Atocha is patrolled by Guardia civil with machine guns; 2) toilets.

I went and asked and it was 2). So I could wash my hands. And then pee. And then wash my hands again. I had to take the words of my best man somewhat seriously, he doesn’t get to run the Reporting Factory single-handedly for nothing, you know.

After that, I went to one of the most beautiful waiting areas I have ever seen (see second picture). There is an oasis in the middle of the concrete forecourt, which cools down the place in summer and gives people a chance to sit and breathe during the rest of the year. It was completely unexpected and most welcome. I sat for a while wondering what to do next. In the end, I went to a pharmacy that was advertising anti-coronavirus kits and spent 20€ on a mask and some hand sanitizer. Paranoia will destroy ya.

After a coffee and a refresher, I got the train to Málaga María Zambrano, and instead of sleeping in the quiet coach as had been my plan, spent the trip staring in quiet contemplation of the countryside, which was in parts quite magnificent.

Málaga itself is a little run down and earthy, in other words, just the way I like it. There seems to be little of the haughtiness of the Madrileños or the superiority of the Catalans. These people are just regular people. They’ll even help a poor traveller with two cases get into a paying toilet complex without paying. And then wink conspiratorially.

As I walked to the bus station to get a ticket for the last section of the trip, the 19:00 milk run towards Marbella, I saw a young Cameroonian at a Lycaphone stand. As I struggled with the basic Spanish concepts of “Hello” and “can I buy a Sim card?” he was able to ask in three languages which other languages it might be preferable to converse. Then he sold me a SIM card, installed it, tested it, and handed back the phone for 10€.
“You won’t be able to use WhatsApp, sir,” he said.

“That’s good,” I answered, thanked him, and went to catch my bus.