The day started with a fairly early departure from Boston at about 12:30pm. Unfortunately the first flight was to Chicago O’Hare. I do not like going backwards to go forwards but there were other reasons to accept this sacrifice. The flight to Chicago on a 737 was basically uneventful and the time in O’Hare really wasn’t bad. I found a bar named the Prairie Tap and had a couple Sam Adams and a mushroom burger with cheese. The food was ok, though the burger was cooked more than I like, all the way to well destroyed. By the time I was done I had to figure out where my gate was and of course it was basically one of 2 not listed on a giant departures board of over 50 (and probably more). I solved this problem by asking a girl at a desk for a different flight and she told me to go to gate K19. It wasn’t posted right away but a few minutes later it did pop up on their screen. Boarding was easy and the flight itself was a little bit bumpy here and there but not much to mention. I was stuck in a window seat but only 2 people on the sides as it was a 2 5 2 configuration. The plane was an A340. They had limited entertainment system and only showed one movie which was Mr Popper’s Penguins. I did actually watch it even though I am not a fan of Jim Carrey. It was about what you would expect of it. Aimed for children and not remotely plausible and of course with the jerk turns nice guy ending. All because of the penguins who touched his life. Anyway it could have been much worse than it was. I was able to get through it which is more than I can say for The Green Hornet. The meal was either beef or chicken and I tried the beef and it was like a beef stew with mashed potatoes. It didn’t taste bad but I think it negatively affected me because I was having stomach pains the rest of the flight.
Nonetheless I was able to survive and get off the extremely hot airplane into a cool hallway in one piece. I was of course deceived because the rest of the airport was as hot as the plane. I was also confused because it was nearly 8am and it was still very dark out. I wasn’t prepared for that. I was beginning to think I had my timetables wrong though it couldn’t add up any other way than just before 8am unless I entered an episode of Dr Who. After disembarking I had to ride a tram to get to my checked luggage then exit the arrivals area and find the departures area. It was very early but I still had a flight to Ibiza to take at 12:35pm. I figured I would have some trouble trying to check in as it was so early for that flight and basically I was right. There are boards that tell you which counters to check in with in Madrid Airport. The boards only went so far as 11:40 for a long time and I had to wander around to kill some time until I found a place to sit. I chose to spend a few minutes jotting down the early part of transit to help kill the time better but I still had a lot of time to kill. They didn’t post where I could check in until about 2 ½ hours before the flight. Of course it was self check in. That was fine because I bypassed a lot of lines. From there it was the brief tour through security which wasn’t bad at all then on to the get section where all I could find was that I was in the wing named K. No gate posted. I walked to the end of K and found a departures board there and then found a spot to nap some more while waiting for the gate to post. It did eventually post to pretty much where I was but not until less than 45 minutes before the flight was supposed to push off. Of course that was because it was late. It turned out to be almost exactly ½ hour late.
The last leg of my flying was in a Bombadier CRJ200 which is a 50 passenger plane. There was one flight attendant on the plane but it was indeed a jet. We had to walk out onto the tarmac to board it and again to exit the plane. I’ll be honest, like a lot of these flight legs I slept through almost the whole thing. By then my stomach was feeling better somewhat which was nice. So basically I can say little about the flight except the boarding and disembarking procedures which were both quick. The airport reminded me a little of the airport at Cusco but maybe a bit nicer. Getting my bag was quick then it was to the taxi stand where it took probably at 10-15 minutes to drive to the hotel. It is the Hostal Europa Punica. With the word hostel in the name it sounds scary I guess but it turned out to be quite nice. Maybe it is not on a prominent street but the room is largish and clean and there is even a nice patio to sit on. Of course it turned out to be blazing hot with the sun (at least to a New Englander) so I wasn’t aiming for that right away. I of course needed to get settled in and cleaned up. After that I figured I would take a small exploration walk.
I really didn’t end up going too far before I found an area with a few cafes and decided to stop and get a beer and something to eat. It was practically 5pm and I hadn’t eaten since the dinner on the flight across the ocean. Unfortunately I think my stomach was still a touch messy. I had a couple beers which appeared to be German Warsteiners. I also ordered the pizza carnival which was basically a cheese pizza with bacon on it. It tasted really good but I started to feel full almost instantly. I only ended up eating half of the pizza. I hung out for quite a while before moving on. I then started to do a more random walk around the town. It reminds me a little bit of Palermo only cleaner and more well off. Of course, both of those would not be difficult feats to achieve. It is obviously at least close to tropical here with all of the palm trees and such and the weather was definitely humid and about 23C it said so not terribly hot but the sun is very effective here. If it wasn’t for the cooler breeze I would probably not like it much. With a short play at trying to get myself lost and found I ended up back at the hotel rather early but I was exhausted from the travel so I decided I would relax and finish out watching Yamato which I had started to watch on the Jeep Jamboree. After that I pretty much crashed for the evening even though it might have been a touch early.
The pictures from day 1 can be found here.
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