Escrito 11 septiembre
Well, believe it or not, I am finally in Spain! To date my only international travels had been a road trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and then Toronto, which is about as American you can get and not be in the States.
I was ready to leave well before yesterday. My parents, who accompanied me on the flight and are leaving for a tour of Spain on Saturday were not ready. It came down to the wire.
I think every suitcase was slightly overweight over the 23 kg limit, but none weighed more than 24 kg so the agent did not charge us. Score. One of my two suitcases was selected for the random TSA screening. It was funny because I was waiting in the world’s longest security line and saw them pull my bag.
We flew on Iberia, which has direct daily flights from O’Hare (ORD) to Madrid (MAD), which was nice. The flight was about eight hours, which wasn’t too bad although previously the longest flight I had been on was from Midway to Oakland, which was definitely a lot less than that.
In the terminal, we saw the Notre Dame program waiting, and they were all on our flight. As many of you know, I was pretty much bred to attend the University of Notre Dame and still have some regrets about not going there. It was kind of a sting because there were probably almost thirty of them and they were all flying together and seemed very friendly. There will be a grand total of seven students from Georgetown in Madrid this semester, and I pretty much don’t know them at all. The normal thing to do would have been to ask one of them whether they were indeed from Notre Dame and introduced myself as a Georgetown student, but the usual Colleen introvert won, and I didn’t say anything.
I was in the back row of the plane next to a Spanish guy who was maybe 30 years old. He was very attractive. I didn’t really say a word to him the entire flight. More on this later.
Dinner was served, the first time I’d had airline food in like, 12 years, aka probably the first time I flew on an airplane. There was this beef stew that seemed alright, some tuna salad I did not touch, and some surprisingly delicious strawberry cheesecake (if that passes as airline pastry I can’t wait to eat freshly baked Spanish pastries!). As a college student, I never turn down a free cup of coffee. It was cute to see the flight attendants walking around with silver pots asking if we wanted café or té.
An hour later, the flight is watching Nim’s Island, a film that inconveniently features rocking boats and stormy waters. Why was this inconvenient? Turbulence over the Atlantic. Motion sickness. Hello, stew, cake, and coffee. Poor guy sitting next to me.
Did you also know that when you press the button to call for the flight attendant that chicken shit happens? After a few minutes of holding a very full barf bag, I went to the back of the plane. They just told me to throw it out in his bathroom. Classy.
I walk back to my seat in time to watch the happy sunny conclusion of the film. As always, Beautiful Day was playing.
At this point, the seatbelt sign is turned on and guy next to me is fidgeting around. Turns out I’ve been using part of his seat belt. Further shame.
The next film is Spanish, Cobardes, but for some reason I was watching it dubbed in Spanish. The bully character looked a lot like my brother four years or so ago from certain angles.
At this point, I’m feeling better and decide to sleep. Ten minutes later, the flight attendants turn the lights on and start serving breakfast.
I took my medication, and I’m supposed to wait at least half an hour before eating. I made it 25 before wolfing down a croissant. Probably kills the effect of the medication. Oh well. At this point, I was still tasting the beef stew.
Some ear pain on the landing. I was glad to be on solid ground. But I guess the pain of a transatlantic flight is worth it J
We landed in this extremely remote terminal of Madrid-Barajas. It was very strange. The terminal was huge, but we didn’t see…anyone or anything. No seats for waiting. No shops. No Starbucks. Much as you hate the crowds at good old O’Hare and Reagan, at least there is some sense of shared pain.
At customs, I couldn’t for the life of me understand what the agent was saying…and he was talking in English. He was asking me where I was studying in Spain and ended up miming out “study.”
Note: I was repping the campaign on my flight and my first day in Madrid, wearing my Obama ’08 shirt. I got a lot of love. The U.S. Customs Agent in Chicago asked me if I was a campaign employee. I wish.
We then proceeded to take a shuttle all the way back to the main terminals to get our luggage. We then tried to take a taxi to the hotel, but this was problematic.
In Madrid, small, fuel-efficient taxis are the rage. My family needed three adults and four large suitcases transported, and that was not going to happen in a standard Spanish taxi. After a lot of miscommunication between two employees, we were schlepped off to a shuttle stand. As it turned out, this was not too bad because it was not that much more expensive than a taxi (and we would have needed two) and we got our own little microbus.
The only thing was that my mom especially was getting pretty flustered, and I think that the language barrier added to that. I wonder how they would have made out if I hadn’t been there.
The shuttle driver did not seem to be in the mood for chatter on the ride to the hotel, and this was just as well because I was too busy drinking in all of the sights.
We checked in and tried to fight off the inevitability of jet lag. My mother was not very successful, but this enabled my and my dad to go for a nice little stroll around the neighborhood. We went back to the room and I too nodded off, but only really for an hour, which was impressive since I didn’t sleep on the plane and was too anxious (always happens before the first day of school, etc.) to sleep the night before.
At this point, it was about lunch time, and we ended up eating at a cafeteria in the Corte Inglés, this huge department store in Spain. It’s like Macy’s, except waaaay bigger. We meandered around the neighborhood a bit (we’re right by Bernabeu Stadium, where Madrid Real plays), but other than that didn’t do much sightseeing. Tomorrow I want to go to the Palacio Real and then hang out in some of the fabulous plazas. The Prado is really the crown jewel to see in Madrid, but my parents will be there on Sunday for their tour and I will be there mucho, as the one class I really hope to take is Spanish Painting in the Prado (weekly field trip!).
I’m still very dizzy. There is still so much to take in. At times today I’ve been completely overwhelmed and other times completely charmed. My Spanish is, as I suspected, not up to speed, but I imagine it will get there. The one thing I am worried about is how fabulously fashionable Spanish women are! I felt a bit dowdy today. Maybe I’ll come back from Spain fabulously sophisticated and European.
Well, believe it or not, I am finally in Spain! To date my only international travels had been a road trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and then Toronto, which is about as American you can get and not be in the States.
I was ready to leave well before yesterday. My parents, who accompanied me on the flight and are leaving for a tour of Spain on Saturday were not ready. It came down to the wire.
I think every suitcase was slightly overweight over the 23 kg limit, but none weighed more than 24 kg so the agent did not charge us. Score. One of my two suitcases was selected for the random TSA screening. It was funny because I was waiting in the world’s longest security line and saw them pull my bag.
We flew on Iberia, which has direct daily flights from O’Hare (ORD) to Madrid (MAD), which was nice. The flight was about eight hours, which wasn’t too bad although previously the longest flight I had been on was from Midway to Oakland, which was definitely a lot less than that.
In the terminal, we saw the Notre Dame program waiting, and they were all on our flight. As many of you know, I was pretty much bred to attend the University of Notre Dame and still have some regrets about not going there. It was kind of a sting because there were probably almost thirty of them and they were all flying together and seemed very friendly. There will be a grand total of seven students from Georgetown in Madrid this semester, and I pretty much don’t know them at all. The normal thing to do would have been to ask one of them whether they were indeed from Notre Dame and introduced myself as a Georgetown student, but the usual Colleen introvert won, and I didn’t say anything.
I was in the back row of the plane next to a Spanish guy who was maybe 30 years old. He was very attractive. I didn’t really say a word to him the entire flight. More on this later.
Dinner was served, the first time I’d had airline food in like, 12 years, aka probably the first time I flew on an airplane. There was this beef stew that seemed alright, some tuna salad I did not touch, and some surprisingly delicious strawberry cheesecake (if that passes as airline pastry I can’t wait to eat freshly baked Spanish pastries!). As a college student, I never turn down a free cup of coffee. It was cute to see the flight attendants walking around with silver pots asking if we wanted café or té.
An hour later, the flight is watching Nim’s Island, a film that inconveniently features rocking boats and stormy waters. Why was this inconvenient? Turbulence over the Atlantic. Motion sickness. Hello, stew, cake, and coffee. Poor guy sitting next to me.
Did you also know that when you press the button to call for the flight attendant that chicken shit happens? After a few minutes of holding a very full barf bag, I went to the back of the plane. They just told me to throw it out in his bathroom. Classy.
I walk back to my seat in time to watch the happy sunny conclusion of the film. As always, Beautiful Day was playing.
At this point, the seatbelt sign is turned on and guy next to me is fidgeting around. Turns out I’ve been using part of his seat belt. Further shame.
The next film is Spanish, Cobardes, but for some reason I was watching it dubbed in Spanish. The bully character looked a lot like my brother four years or so ago from certain angles.
At this point, I’m feeling better and decide to sleep. Ten minutes later, the flight attendants turn the lights on and start serving breakfast.
I took my medication, and I’m supposed to wait at least half an hour before eating. I made it 25 before wolfing down a croissant. Probably kills the effect of the medication. Oh well. At this point, I was still tasting the beef stew.
Some ear pain on the landing. I was glad to be on solid ground. But I guess the pain of a transatlantic flight is worth it J
We landed in this extremely remote terminal of Madrid-Barajas. It was very strange. The terminal was huge, but we didn’t see…anyone or anything. No seats for waiting. No shops. No Starbucks. Much as you hate the crowds at good old O’Hare and Reagan, at least there is some sense of shared pain.
At customs, I couldn’t for the life of me understand what the agent was saying…and he was talking in English. He was asking me where I was studying in Spain and ended up miming out “study.”
Note: I was repping the campaign on my flight and my first day in Madrid, wearing my Obama ’08 shirt. I got a lot of love. The U.S. Customs Agent in Chicago asked me if I was a campaign employee. I wish.
We then proceeded to take a shuttle all the way back to the main terminals to get our luggage. We then tried to take a taxi to the hotel, but this was problematic.
In Madrid, small, fuel-efficient taxis are the rage. My family needed three adults and four large suitcases transported, and that was not going to happen in a standard Spanish taxi. After a lot of miscommunication between two employees, we were schlepped off to a shuttle stand. As it turned out, this was not too bad because it was not that much more expensive than a taxi (and we would have needed two) and we got our own little microbus.
The only thing was that my mom especially was getting pretty flustered, and I think that the language barrier added to that. I wonder how they would have made out if I hadn’t been there.
The shuttle driver did not seem to be in the mood for chatter on the ride to the hotel, and this was just as well because I was too busy drinking in all of the sights.
We checked in and tried to fight off the inevitability of jet lag. My mother was not very successful, but this enabled my and my dad to go for a nice little stroll around the neighborhood. We went back to the room and I too nodded off, but only really for an hour, which was impressive since I didn’t sleep on the plane and was too anxious (always happens before the first day of school, etc.) to sleep the night before.
At this point, it was about lunch time, and we ended up eating at a cafeteria in the Corte Inglés, this huge department store in Spain. It’s like Macy’s, except waaaay bigger. We meandered around the neighborhood a bit (we’re right by Bernabeu Stadium, where Madrid Real plays), but other than that didn’t do much sightseeing. Tomorrow I want to go to the Palacio Real and then hang out in some of the fabulous plazas. The Prado is really the crown jewel to see in Madrid, but my parents will be there on Sunday for their tour and I will be there mucho, as the one class I really hope to take is Spanish Painting in the Prado (weekly field trip!).
I’m still very dizzy. There is still so much to take in. At times today I’ve been completely overwhelmed and other times completely charmed. My Spanish is, as I suspected, not up to speed, but I imagine it will get there. The one thing I am worried about is how fabulously fashionable Spanish women are! I felt a bit dowdy today. Maybe I’ll come back from Spain fabulously sophisticated and European.
No comments:
Post a Comment