Missy - Barcelona to Madrid

 

Today we had only a few things on the agenda. First eat another big buffet breakfast.

We did that with fair alacrity.

Next go swim in the Mediterranean again. 

The water was colder but he morning was hotter so it all evened out. 

I saw two small fish this time. They were sand colored but had black Vs on their tails.

I planned on this trip to meet a tattoo artist I admire on Instagram.

When you get a tattoo you can’t go into the pool or beach water for quite a while (4 - 6 weeks).

It was my tattoo day so I was particularly happy to be getting in the water just prior. 

After we went swimming we went back to the hotel and checked out, grabbed a cab and headed over to Folk Art Tattoo . It is at this point that we realized we had forgotten our hats. 

We decided that if the tattoo was under 4 hours we would head back for them. 

 Once at the studio I found a place to stash Kiernan, filled out the usual safety forms and started talking to Paula about what to do. 

I’d sent her some Pinterest ideas from Camino tattoos that I liked and some of her tattoos that I liked. 

She said she had an idea and we left it at that. 

So on the day of she showed me her idea and the only change I had was flipping it upside down so it had a cross

Instead of a sword. 

She printed about various sizes and we talked about placement. 

I knew I wanted it on my right leg and she said she likes best the look of round things on the calf muscle. So we chose the 2nd largest option. 

We went back and she cleaned my leg and got out the sterilized needle and wrapped it to a cleaned deer antler with a ton of medical tape. She asked me if I was ready. I’m never really sure if I’m ready. On the other hand it’s what I’m there for. So I said yes. 

It hurt. It felt like when you snag your leg on a thorn. 

She asked if it hurt and I said yes. She said if it hurts now in 20 minutes you will be kicking your leg around. 

I was very much hoping not to kick my leg around spasmodically so I opened up my TempleRun and asked her if she wanted silence or if she liked to talk. 

She said she loves to talk. So I started asking her about the Viking re-enactment she does and about bands we like in common and about rescue dog and she asked me about the Camino and guns in America and cooking. 

Between the game and the talk I managed to distract myself sufficiently to do no kicks. 

I was told that hand poke heals more quickly. My instructions were to unwrap it in a few hours to let it breathe. I am to wash it 3 times a day and use aftercare cream on it. 

We finished in about 2.5 hours so Kiernan and I had time to grab the best pizza I had in Spain and go get our hats. 

It was a very successful time. 

I need to mention here how easy and weirdly aggressive the taxis are in Barcelona. They are all in a hurry and they will pull over anywhere. 

We had one yelling at an ambulance for getting in his way. So many red lights were run, so many speed limits ignored. 

After we got our hats we took a cab to the train station and stood in the line of doom where I was mistaken for a Spaniard but held my own with yes this was the 5:35 to Madrid. No I didn’t know when the line would move and then we gave one another the universal shrug and sigh of stuck travelers. 

We took a high speed train to Madrid and found ourselves in the quiet car. I am a big fan of the quiet car. 

In Madrid we took a much less kamikaze cab ride to the airport hotel. 

It was a long day. I was wiped out from the tattoo. 

Kiernan was tired and hungry and we set our alarm for 6:45 in the morning to meet the airport shuttle.