Still in Madrid

Changing plans on the fly. Decided to stay extra night in Madrid, switch rooms to one in the old part of the city.  Read reviews after I'd booked it, which were awful, so pleasantly surprised so far, minus the poor soul puking out their guts on the other side of the wall (my bed being against their toilet), but I can't fault the pension for that.  Dropped my bags off earlier (and near Plaza del Sol there were at least two places with storage lockers, which is good to know), ran some errands, and then stopped in a bar for lunch. I was in there for over an hour, and when I walked back outside, just blasted with heat. Now it's 102 or something, but at least no humidity. Still, it radiates off all the stone, there are some shades hung over streets to help block some of the sun.  So, basically, I'm now sitting in a dark room watching cartoons dubbed in Spanish...it calms my brain.  Thought about going to the Thyssen gallery but couldn't muster the will to go back outside. It'd be a shortish walk, too. I've been going back out later in the day, seems a shame to be here and not explore.

The food tour was fun, and this is my second one, first in Barcelona, pre-Covid. It can get lonely travelling alone in big cities when you aren't fluent in the language. There were only 7 of us, 3 Australians and 4 Americans.  Everyone was friendly. We got a bit of history, ate some food, tried various drinks, such as two different tempranillos aged the same, but grown in different soils and tasting quite different.  As well as different labeled jamons, almost all of us preferring the red label, black being the most expensive, red being second.  I think red can be 75% black hoofed, acorn fed; black label is 100%, but also aged longer.  We had vermouth at another place and ended at San Gines for churros and chocolate.  (The first night I was ever in Madrid I heard people on the street and got up to go wander and ended up at San Gines around midnight.  This guy that spoke English hit on me, which is amusing, I looked like a dork.)

I bought a bus ticket to go north tomorrow.  Not any cooler there. Then the week seems to be ending with thunderstorms everywhere I want to go, but by late weekend the temps drop down to more reasonable.  It's not unreasonable to not want to get heatstroke.

The swifts are still screaming around the sky, I can hear them through the closed window. They always surprise me, we don't have them back home, how they suddenly gather en masse scream through the air and then break up again.

I was doing intensive spanish lessons for past couple of months, it helps, but still difficult.  It only got to past tense. Aside from the tour group, really not encountering english, although, yes, lots of travellers speak english, but unlike in the past, I'm not staying in shared room in a hostel.

I should go out.