Homeward Bound
Trip Start
Dec 30, 2008
1
4
Trip End
Jan 02, 2009
Madrid, Madrid, Spain and Canary Islands
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Well confession time, Andrea and I are blatant art heathens not understanding any of it and feeling underwhelmed when faced with the Guernica. Pete joined us is in our lack of finesse. Rich, Melbers and Steve appeared quite into it all and Rich even made some comments on the Dali pieces...
After the art experience we had tapas (finally!) in a wine bar recommended by our guide book. I finally got to eat pulpo (octopus) and there was some confusion over bullock cheek but I think we resolved it. I chose the cheapest glass of red only for the waiter to tell me no, so I chose another one a bit more expensive and still he said no, so I gave up and he chose one for me and you're all thinking he will have gone for the most expensive one, but he didn't same price as my second one. Likely it was the one they wanted to get rid of but it was perfectly fine.
Headed back to Laura to wait for our minibus back to the airport which was all uneventful. We found the right check in desks for Easyjet and as luck would have it, chose the slowest one with the most miserable check in personwho pretty much barked at us and had bad breath! I asked for special assistance again and his response was "you only"! Well that wouldn't help me up steps if I needed a hand would it? So I said I needed one more and he just grunted but granted my request. Then his printer jammed so we waited even longer. Then the Melbers' case got stuck on the belt...and it was stuffy in the airport...you can imagine the mood of our group by now.
Went through security and we must have been at the wrong part of the airport as there were no shops and not enough time to traipse round and find them so we headed to the gate. As usual with Easyjet there was the usual riot of people all trying to get on first. Andrea and I headed to the front ready for the special assistance shout out and this rude Scouse woman looked at our passes and said "you're B" implying we shouldn't be there. Andrea retorted "SA actually"! Her whole family were horrible,. Her mum kept jostling me as I was in front of her. Like that would get her through quicker??? Sometimes the rudeness of people baffles me!
Anyway a muffled announcement came through announcing a delay! Twenty minutes later we boarded but the pilot told us there was a European wide aid traffic controller strike so we would be further delayed but at least we were on the plane. Rumour had it, it could take 2.5 hours to depart! Eek! Luckily it didn't and we ended up being delayed by an hour. The stress, heat and activity of the last few days just meant I slept through the delay and whole flight although Steve had to nudge me a few times as I was emitting loud snores!
Now we're back I can say I had a great new year. Madrid was fun and made even more so by friends. As a destination there are probably better European cities with more to see and do. Madrid seems to be more about art galleries and we're not that type of person. However the Puerta del Sol on NYE would be pretty hard to beat!
