Madrid

 I'm in Madrid. It's hot. Hovering around 100 F hot. I took a taxi from the airport here for the first time, normally, I'd take the Metro, but didn't want to walk to my hostel jet-lagged, and dragging luggage in the heat.  There wasn't any traffic, so it was pretty fast.  And after all, my stressing regarding travel forms, there were no passport nor COVID checks to go through. By chance I backed up and looked at someone's phone after I passed by, and he ended up being my taxi driver. (He had my name on his phone screen, held up.)

I've been sick, puking my guts out six hours before my flight, I figured it was stress from annual review at work or bad yogurt. I'm still a bit queasy, but I didn't get sick on the flight.  My review was stressful, and while I'll concede maybe I'm not proactive regarding my own work development, it's partly I hadn't felt encouraged in the past and being the front desk person seems like the afterthought as far as career development and work loads.  I will give her credit for having made the offer for training, but I couldn't imagine what training would be approved, so I guess I didn't really pursue it.

And she kinda' mocked me for not wanting to take my time off when it was too hot to hike, she didn't think that was a legitimate concern as far as office flow goes.  But that's how I want to spend my vacation.  And when are we supposed to pursue our own lives?  Does work have to come first until we retire?  And if so, how is that a life?

Anyway, it's either excessively hot or thunder storms everywhere I want to go.  It's after 11 pm now, and still in the 90's.  

I took a nap, which seemed long, but was out two hours and then went out to wander.  I need to drop my pack weight (as usual) a d then of course went into a turron shop and bought turron, which is heavy. Maybe I'll send it forward. Then I went next door to that shop and ate fancy tapas.  The neighborhood was crawling with cops, big guns.  Maybe some official was there, or neighborhood was sketchy. I didn't feel unsafe.

Tomorrow I am think I'll do a tour, and then find a post office, and buy a bus ticket north.

Cheers.