¡Madrid!

Tuesday, April 2, 2019 (Court Day #251)
The Spain Trip

The Lead Up

On Saturday, March 30, I posted on the Facebook Pickleball Forum asking about games in Madrid. My wife Kristen and I would be visiting our daughter Charlotte in Spain for a week while my wife—a 1st grade teacher—was on spring break. We’d be joined by my mother-in-law and her sister. (They’d be splitting the AirBnB bill, so I can’t complain too much, right? Plus they are good people.)

From my Facebook post, I got a couple very helpful answers. The best one was connecting me with Carlos, a player in Madrid, with times and a place for play.

Our temporary apartment in Madrid would be in the heart of downtown, right between the Prado Museum and their expansive public park, Parque de El Retiro. In my online searches, I’d found that pickleball is played in that park, a mere 10-minute walk away!

Madrid

We landed in Madrid on Sunday mid-afternoon, March 31. Our first evening there, my wife and I strolled the park. It’s beautiful with manicured trees, wide winding paths, and fountains. We made our way near the courts and I just had to go in after I heard the telltale sound of pickleball! I walked in the entrance—there was no one manning the office booth—and found two games going on, though the near one only had three players.

Seven people out playing pickleball in the park. 

I waited for a break between points and called over to the nearby man playing with two women. “Hola. ¿Hablas inglés?” (“Hi. Do you speak English?”)

He responded that he did a little. “¿Pickleball aquí mañana?” (“Pickleball here tomorrow?”) He said, “Afternoon”. I asked the time and it came back fast in Spanish. 6-something. I’d figure it out later. One of the women asked me (in Spanish) to join them—to make their fourth. I smiled and shrugged, saying, “Mi esposa” and pointing in the direction of my wife. The woman laughed knowingly. Not today.

I Facebook-messaged Carlos and he got me the full address and answering my question of if the venue was indoor or outdoor:

“pabellon del COLEGIO NUESTRA SEÑORA DEL RECUERDO.
Plaza del Duque de Pastrana, 5
28036, Madrid
its indoor”

When I showed the location to Charlotte—studying abroad from Tufts University for a semester—she said it would take about an hour to get there. I was determined to go regardless.

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday morning, I left the apartment and the rest of our clan about 9:40. (It’s sad when 9:40 is considered early, but that’s common in Madrid!) They’d be shopping for shoes while I was playing. I walked across that big adjacent park and down a block hoping for any sign of the train/subway “METRO” entrance. After no luck just looking as I walked, I pulled out my phone and pulled up Google Maps. I had the foresight to download a big chunk of Madrid while at the airport back in San Jose, California. The map showed the Metro logo. As I zoomed in, it disappeared. Odd. Thanks, Google! But it at least told me what street it was on. I found the entrance, descended the stairs, carded myself in, and found my train.

No one wears shorts in Madrid. From the time I entered the train platform. I got a lot of quizzical looks! After a series of stops, I got off on mine hoping for an indication of where I should head. Once up on street level, I put in the address into Maps but with no foreign data plan and my phone in airplane mode, it was no help. And, sure enough, with the 9:40 departure, I was going to be a little bit late for the 10:30 start time.

I stopped a young man. “¿Habla inglés?” He responded with a resistant but upbeat affirmative. “¿Donde esta esto?” (“Where is this?”) I pointed to the address that Carlos had sent me via Facebook Messenger. The young fellow was very nice and in basic English gave me directions, saying it is a big school. “Muchas gracias.” Off I went. I didn’t know where the entrance would be or how to find the gym on a large campus. A bit concerned, I just walked down the road, fingers crossed.

After about 10 minutes of walking block after block, I found the school and walked into the first entrance that looked remotely people friendly. (The trash dumpsters were not promising!) There were a few men behind the counter.

“¿Habla inglés?”

“No… pick-el-bole?” A smile was on his face—and broader one on mine! Excellent! I was miraculously in the right place! And I figured that Carlos had prepped him that an American was coming. I nodded and the man pointed down the hall.
“¿Carlos?” as I pointed in the gym direction. The man nodded and pointed. Perfect!

I could hear the telltale sound of a pickleball in use! Journey successful!

I entered the gym doorway and a man stopped stopped playing and approached. “¿Carlos?” “Yes!” Carlos has a pretty good command of English—far better than my rudimentary Spanish.

He introduced me to his friends: Danny, Christian, and Llamal. (Pronounced “yah-mall.”) They were in the middle of a game, so I took a seat on the bleachers and watched.

Danny (pink) and Llamal (on the far side) with Christian and Carlos across the net.

It became obvious that Carlos and Danny were the strongest players. Even at my best, with no tennis elbow, they would still be a bit better than me. Christian and I would be more comparable in terms of skill, I would say. Llamal was decent but made more mistakes. It was pointed out to me that he was new to pickleball.

Carlos kindly stepped out and let me play as the fourth. I pointed to each player, “¿Inglés?” “¿Inglés?” “¿Inglés?” When Llamal said no. I signaled for them to all come over. I explained in Spanish that my primary arm was “sick”—I had no idea how to say “tennis elbow”!—but that I was playing with my second hand. They understood.

After a few games, Danny asked me in English how long I’d been playing left-handed.
“Tres meses.” (Three months.)
“You are very good for three months.” He went on to say that he’d had shoulder surgery and had to play left-handed for a while himself.

I played ok at times, but also spent many times saying, “¡Lo siento!” and “Muy alta.” That is, “Sorry” and “Very high.” Yes, I popped a few up while playing left-handed! There were a few obvious instances where Danny and Christian didn’t attack one of my high balls to instead keep the point going. They were good sports.

After Carlos received an important phone call—he left in the middle of a game to take it—I got the impression that Carlos had somewhere to be, though he did play another couple of games. At about 12:15, they started taking down the net. I helped where I could. I was jealous, they had one of the newer bigger net bags that you don’t need to fight to get the long poles in. Danny and Christian pulled up the masking tape delineating the court that they must have put down before I got there.

I asked Carlos, “¿Fotografía con todos?” (“Photograph with everyone?”) My pronunciation may have been off, since I got a “¿Que?” in response—never good! I repeated it then he understood and he got a young woman walking through to take a photo of us.

Llamal, Christian, me, Carlos and Danny.

By 12:19, I was hoofing it back to the Metro station. A great group of guys.

Thursday, April 4, 2019 (Pickleball?)

We had a bit of time before we were to meet my daughter Charlotte at the apartment at 8 p.m. to head off to dinner. (Madridians eat dinner late!) Being that I didn’t catch the precise time for the outdoor pickleball play, I had asked Carlos early in the week—before we’d met—if he could find out. He said he’d ask, then got back to me a bit later:

I headed over to the park about 6:15, giving me plenty of time. I asked the woman at the front desk about paying the three Euro fee I’d been told about. We were doing our best to communicate and I figured out that she meant that I was to pay the person on the court, not her. Ok. Easy enough, I went in. I was a few minutes early. There were no pickleball players to be seen yet. There were a few tennis players, some soccer players, and some older men with some strange perforated paddles who were using them to hit what looked to be a tennis ball over a net.

The strange paddle.

As I waiting, some girls around 13 or 14 came with tennis rackets and set up in the space where pickleball had been on Sunday evening. Hmmm. Not good. I waited until about 6:40 then concluded that I had misunderstood and there was to be no pickleball today, Apparently, “monday-friday” in Madrid means “monday&friday” and is not inclusive of all the days in between—or someone gave Carlos bad information. Ah, well. No biggie. It’s not like I traveled an hour to get there, I just had to walk across the street and through a pretty park.

So, my pickleball experience in Spain was limited to the fun gym time with the guys. It was well worth lugging my paddle and attire across the planet.

Aside from seeing my daughter and playing pickleball, the highlight of the trip was visiting Toledo the old city known for swords. The history there is amazing.

It would have been great to spend another few days in Madrid, but as it was, we flew out six days after arriving and headed home on Saturday, April 6.

Number of days on a court: 251
Number of total hours: 688.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.