Real Jardín Botánico
Just like the last time I was here back in 2013, it is spring and the flora currently in bloom is dangerously similar to what I saw eight years ago, just my luck. That said, there was no way I was not going to visit the Real Jardín Botánico while in Madrid. If I did, I would never forgive myself. Half way through my stay here I finally got a chance. But I wasn’t about to go see it alone … the third person I met through GGI (Girl Gone International) is Lisa, a fellow Canadian, and someone I’ve been trying to meet up with for a few days now but we kept missing each other. I can usually tell how well I will get along with someone by how difficult it was to have that first meeting; in this case, I was not disappointed at all.
After some false starts, we finally decided to meet on a beautiful Thursday afternoon for a walk through the famous gardens. Lisa already has a pass but I had to spend some €4 to enter. I did not complain, it’s worth every cent. I got there a bit early so ended up wandering around the northern part of the gardens by myself. I was a little disappointed with the state of many of the flower beds, to be honest, but then I remembered that this is a big place and there is a pandemic still on, so maybe that’s why the maintenance crews were a little behind in their work. I decided to not get too upset though I do not like it when I take pictures of pretty plants and common weeds photobomb them.
I made my way to where the majority of blooming plants were and those were mostly irises and peonies. It seems that I did luck out in that regard because eight years ago Ori and I just missed the irises and the peonies were a little late. This time I took way more pictures, though, to be honest, the ones I took then with my SLR camera were a million times better, at least in my opinion. I guess I’ll have to be happy with quantity now, if not quality. Lisa joined me when I was in the rose garden helping a couple of ladies take photos of themselves with the pretty roses, and from then on we explored together while getting to know each other.
It became very clear very quickly that we had lots in common which made the time go by fast. We didn’t go to the massive greenhouse, Invernadero Santiago Castroviejo Bolíbar, because I had already seen that, and, instead, Lisa led me to the very cool bonsai garden instead. I’ve never been a huge fan of bonsai, for some reason I found it cruel to force plants to live in restricted environments, but I have to admit these creations were quite beautiful. Some of them even reminded me of West Coast forests … considering how much I love miniatures and dioramas, my dislike of bonsai really is somewhat irrational and I’m beginning to change my opinion on them.
It was a pretty warm day forcing us to take a little break and try the gardens’ coffee shop where we sat, drank, ate treats, and chatted. It was a really nice change from all the face-to-face conversations I’ve had in the past eight months or so … I could just talk and not constantly search for words or worry about grammar; it may sounds silly but I really enjoyed it. Sure, I’ve had plenty of conversations with family and friends in English but that was over FaceTime or Skype and that’s just not the same. We were having so much fun, as a matter of fact, neither one of us wanted to quit but since Lisa had a class she had to teach that evening, we could either go our separate way or we could continue by going to her house, her teaching the class while I waited, and then we could go for dinner. The best part was that once she discovered I was Polish, she really wanted to go with me to the Polish restaurant that is on her block that she’d never been in because, well, she didn’t know anything about Polish food. I think you can tell where I’m going with this.
But first, since we had to cross El Retiro on the way to Lisa’s house, we stopped by a couple of hidden gems of the park I had not seen before: the Rosaleda de El Retiro and the Jardines de Cecilio Rodríguez. In the latter we came across some noisy occupants of the garden: peacocks … who just happened to be in the middle of their breeding season with the females sitting on eggs among the shrubs and their partners being very loud, yelling at each other and us non-stop. It was quite the spectacle though spotting the moms-to-be among the greenery was quite exciting, if not easy, too.
We decided taking a time out for her class was totally worth the chance to try some great food so we did that. I didn’t mind sitting in her little living room eavesdropping on her class … it’s amazing how memories of teaching English in Chile so many years ago came flooding back. For a moment I thought, with some nostalgia, that it would be fun to do that again. As soon as she finished the hour and a half-long lesson I snapped out of it, thankfully, and was much more happy to go try some yummy food than think about teaching again. I don’t really want to teach English again, if I don’t have to, but it is good to know that I could probably slide into it without too much effort, if I had to.
The Polish restaurant, La Polonesa, was everything Lisa promised me it would be: close, cosy, and run by a lovely lady who treated us like queens. Having spoken to her in Polish may have helped a little but it was still awesome. We tried a number of typical dishes, from some amazing country bread, through sałatka z buraczków (beet salad), gołąbki (cabbage rolls), and kluski śląskie (Silesian dumplings), to wątróbka z jabłkami (liver with apples). We did not have dessert because after all that food we would have exploded trying to stuff more in. I guess I will have to go back and try the cheesecake another time. As a matter of fact, there are a number of dishes on the menu I’d like to go back and try. I guess I will be adding this lovely place to my ever-growing list of places to return to.
After spending a fair chunk of the day together, Lisa and I still weren’t bored with each other, thankfully, so as we did have to say bye at some point, we made sure to get together again soon. Making new friends is fun and I have a suspicion we will stay in touch long after I leave Madrid.
