Madrid – Hot town, Cool reputation. Fucked Airport.

The bus rolled into a sweaty Madrid at around 7pm on the 27th of August. There were three full buses departing Valencia the day after La Tomatina, so the hostel would have nearly 150 people to deal with. Luckily, the bus I was on got to Madrid first so I was checked in by 8pm and out with some of the crew for a nice Thai meal down the road before going to bed and being out like a light the moment my head hit the pillow. Madrid seems to have a pretty dull reputation amongst most busabouters, being not a cool as Barcelona and a delay on everyone’s calendar on the way to the super hyped San Sebastian, I was keen to get out and experience the city and see for myself what it had to offer.

I was up early on the Friday, eager to beat the afternoon sun on a walk around Madrid to check out some stuff I had heard about. Matt, Sarah, Kat and Nikki tagged along, and we met up with some other girls that they knew along the way. We went to Plaza Mayor, where people were burned at the stake for having opposing religious views during the Spanish inquisition, and also where the oldest running restaurant in the world is, it’s been in continuous operation since the 13th century. We then went up past the Palacio Real and then up to the Templo de Debod, which is an actual Egyptian temple that was given to Spain by Egypt and now sits on a hill, looking out over the suburbs of Madrid. After that we walked through the Plaza de Espana, where I realized I need to brush up on my Spanish history as for some reason I thought Don Quixote was a Mexican, but being as there is a giant statue of him in Madrid, I am obviously wrong. We then made our way down the Gran Via and down through the Puerta del Sol before arriving back at the hostel.

That afternoon we did a tapas tour. For 8euro we went to 4 tapas bars, getting a glass of sangria at each one and a plate of tapas. It was excellent value and a lot of fun to hang out with the crew in real Spanish places. By the end of the afternoon, we were all pretty tipsy as we were buying extra sangria at most bars, and upon coming home we all retired for a siesta. I could get used to this lifestyle. That night we met at 9pm for a bit to eat before heading out to the hostel up the road that has a bar and is also the start point of the pub crawl. We were already pretty trashed by the time we left on the pub crawl at 1:30am, and headed out into the early Madridian morning. The pub crawl seemed like less of a pub crawl, and more of a club crawl as every place we went to was packed, loud and sweaty, hence by the time we got to the last place, a salsa club, we were already pretty sick of the crowd. We attempted a few hours of salsa, and it was made clear to me once again that I cannot dance for shit. At around 5am we stumbled back to our hostel, with the obligatory stop for a kebab along the way.

I woke up at 11:30am the next day and felt like four buckets of shit. I had planned to go to the Prado Museum today, but instead we all decided to get some food at the supermarket and go for a picnic on the huge Parque del buen Retiro, which was a giant park on the east side of the city. After a walk that took way longer than it should have, we arrived at the park and settled down in a shady spot next to the manmade lake in the centre of the park. It was a lot prettier than I expected, with rowboats making their way around the lake and people playing music on the fringes. Everybody was out enjoying the Saturday afternoon sunshine, and it was a great place to sit down and spend time with friends that I would soon lose as they head off to San Sebastian and I fly directly to Paris. After a spending most of the day at the park, we came back to the hostel where I had to confirm some things about my flight before going out for dinner with Nikki and Kat. I bade them farewell as they went off to a salsa night and I came back to my room to pack and ended up chatting to some American dudes in my room, about the states, travelling and living in New York.

The next morning I woke up refreshed from a decent night’s sleep, and ready to tackle the Madrid metro system, and make my way to the airport. As it turned out, I did not need to be worried about the metro system, it was as easy as pie, however the day was still young, and my 90 minute flight to Paris would turn out to be quite epic.

I arrived to the airport and found my check-in desk, no great dramas there, apart from the face that Spaniards (like most Europeans) dont understand the concept of an orderly moving line, and just think they can do whatever the fuck they like. But, I held back my annoyance, as it made no matter to me, we were all gonna get on the place, sooner or later, so I waited patiently. I went to the gate, and the gate had changed, again, not a huge issue as I soon found my gate, and even though boarding was due to be nearly over, there was still a long line of people trailing away from the gate. Forty minutes later, we still hadn’t boarded so we were all then told there would be a 2 hour delay, we were then given a 6 euro voucher to spend on a snack and drink of some description, and then I went back to my seat and continued playing my psp. Unbeknownst to me, they again changed the gate, and it was only purely by accident that I found my new gate while I had gone to get something to eat. We boarded the plane about 30 min late and then waited on the plane for another 30 minutes before taking off. It was now about 4:30pm and my plane was supposed to depart at 1:45pm. We flew for about 20minutes, I slept most of that time, then woke up and felt that there was something wrong with the plane. We had been flying for more than enough time to get up to cruising altitude, however we were still quite low. The plane seemed to be in turbulence and was trying to climb, but it was as if it just didn’t have the power to do anything about it. It was then announced that there was technical problem and we would be returning to Madrid airport. That 20minutes back to Madrid airport was the scariest time I’ve ever had on a plane. The plane wanted to buck and dive, and there were quite a few times where I felt it was losing power. We only seemed to be a few thousand feet up, so every time the plane turned you could get a very clear few of the ground below. We eventually got back to Madrid airport, and landed without any issues, and I was glad to still be alive. After landing I went to the Veuling airlines office with all the other passengers, and it turned out that we would have another plane at 9:10pm, about 2 hours away. I met Julie, a French girl wanting to get back home to Lille after a big weekend in Madrid, and we went to the bar to use our second 6 euro voucher on a few beers. Julie and I had a great time drinking some beer and discussing the travel habits of Australian’s compared to the French, and eventually we made our way back to our gate and boarded the plane at about 9:30pm. We sat on the plane for about an hour; always being told it was an issue with air traffic control before I again pulled out my psp and played that for an hour or so. At 11pm we would be getting a new crew, and when they arrived we could leave. I spent this time talking to Julie, and then by 11:30pm, we were told that we would need to get off the plane, again. However, 5 minutes later we were told that if we wanted to go to Paris, we could stay on the plane, or if we wanted to get off, we could do so now. This seemed like a weird thing to say, but as I found out later, it was because one of the fucking Spanish dickheads had called the cops from the plane and complained that were not being let off the plane. So there’s cops outside the plane doors demanding everyone be let off, we’re being told if we want to stay on we should take off in the next 35 minutes then we’ll go to Paris, otherwise we’ll have to get off then. What the Fuck? Well, 5minutes later the replacement crew shows up, and we’re told we’re going to Paris. Unfortunately the replacement crew fucks around for a good half an hour so when we finally take off it’s nearly 1am. We fucking finally take off and it is an uneventful 90 minute flight to Paris, and credit to Veuling, at least they fed us for free.

So I’m in Paris, at Charles de Gaulle airport. Julie is coming back to my hostel as she has well and truly missed her connecting train to Lille, and there are no metro trains running so we have to take a 40 euro taxi. We get to my hostel and the guy behind the desk doesn’t want Julie to come in and stay, even though I’m happy to share a bed, he expects her to sleep in the street. After much bullshit he agrees to let her stay till 7am, when the trains will be running again. I finally get up to my room by about 3:30am. About 12 hours after I should have been landing in Paris, had the plane been on time. Fucking Spain.

It’s actually really disappointing because I have had a great time in Spain, and part of me thinks I would really like to go back. But the bag stealing incident in Barcelona and the Madrid airport debacle has forever tainted my feelings toward Spain and I honestly don’t know if it can recover. Well, till next year anyway…