Monday, May 21st. Barcelona-Madrid. We left the hotel at 10:00 to grab some breakfast before our 11:00 train. Around 10:30 we headed to our train platform. After going through security, where they check your luggages, we headed straight to where our train platform was supposed to be. As we approached the elevator, an official in Renfe uniform approached us and asked us to wait for a moment. We followed his command.
He walked away from us to a computer station, spent some time there, and after about 5 minutes, came back to where we were. He then said that he had a better seat for us if we wanted it.
He asked us to take the elevator and meet him at the train platform. He took the escalator.
At the train platform, he directed us to carriage #5. This was our carriage anyways. But at the end of the carriage, there was a place for wheelchair, and right next to space, there were two seats. He had checked to see if those seats were free, and they were. He said it would be more comfortable for us with the baby if we took those seats and left Arthur in the stroller.
That worked well for us! Essentially, we had three seats because we didn’t have to keep Arthur in our seat.
The journey only took about 3 hours. Arthur slept once throughout the journey.
I’m so glad we bumped into the train supervisor, and I’m glad he was able to give us those seats. Maybe we’d be as lucky for our Madrid-Sevilla train in a couple of days.
When we got to Madrid, we walked to our Airbnb. It only took about 10 minutes to walk there. Unfortunately, when we rang the bell, no one answered. We texted the owner but no response.
The cleaner was supposed to meet us at 2pm. We got there at 1:58. We waited outside for about 5 minutes when a tenant opened the front door. We went in with her and took the elevator to the sixth floor.
We tried to find the apartment, but there were no numbers outside the doors. There were five apartments in total on the sixth floor, but we couldn’t tell which was ours.
It was now 2:15. The owner messaged back and said that the lady was here.
But she wasn’t.
I rocked Arthur to sleep. It was now 2:20, and the elevator door opened. A lady stepped out and started talking in Spanish. I understood just a little bit. She said she had been waiting downstairs for us and she apologized for the misunderstanding.
She showed us around the apartment and told us a couple of things about the amenities. When she left, we started unpacking. We waited until Arthur woke up before we did our grocery shopping.
The supermarket was only a block away. When we got home, we cooked, planned for the next day, and went to sleep early.
two backpacks and a diaper bag 