Eldership 2025 Spain - Transitioning to Madrid And Family

We left Bilbao early in the morning in order to get to Madrid in time to pick up #3 at the airport. She's taking a couple of days off from work to visit with us and also connect with other family members. Here in Madrid live our niece and fellow blogger, RMG, along with Granddaughter 2.2 who now is studying here. 

I'd had a poor night sleeping, so the drive was a bit more stressful that it should have been. Going into an unfamiliar airport added to the stress but we managed to find a place to park and didn't get ourselves trapped in. 

#3 secured the next stress test was finding the Airbnb. Finding apartment rentals in major cities is always an adventure. This one was no different. I knew from our interaction with our host (no information) that finding parking was going to be a challenge to say the least. I was right. Thankfully, I had #3 come with me while Wife waited with the luggage at the apartment building. (We had arrived too early to check-in). It had the makings of the usual big city parking search disaster. But as luck would have it, we actually found a pay garage not far from the apartment. #3's very rusty Spanish really helped us as she slogged down to talk to the attendant so we could confirm we could park. We, of course, made a number of errors trying to find the entrance. But find it we did and we were able to get our three days parking for a pretty reasonable fare.

Not long after, we were back with Wife and able to get into the apartment. Soon thereafter, RMG arrived. We were all hungry so we went out to grab some lunch. And after lunch, we went to a lovely large Carrefour market that is NOT closed on Sundays to get food for our breakfasts. 

Wife and I were in serious need of a nap. We left the two cousins to talk while we lay down. We were not sooner up, than the granddaughter arrived. We went out to get a drink in the long lingering Spanish way. After a couple of hours of conversation, we decided we'd better all head to our relative places of rest. 

It was so nice to be with the inter-generational family impromptu grouping. It was also nice to get back to the price/value we've become used to in Spain after the sticker shock in Bilbao. I will write more on this later. Now we're chilling and looking forward to some more family time tomorrow.