The Vacation is Over
I believe that my vacation has officially ended. It probably ended the night before last when I went bar hopping with Adrian, the Australian guy from my hostel. If not, it most certainly ended after my morning coffee with Aristide (also a hostel-ite... I luv gay hostels) from Venezuela yesterday morning. That is when I embarked upon my large-bag-retrieval voyage to the airport. When packing for this trip, I packed my backpack and my smaller suitcase with the things I would need for the Istanbul leg of the trip. I stuffed the larger bag (which I affectionately refer to as "The Monster") with everything I´d be wanting once I returned to Madrid. I dropped the big bag at a baggage check at the airport when I first arrived in Madrid. I knew when I dragged The Monster down the stairs to the storage area that night and then tried to lift it four feet up to the opening of the locker that it would be a pain in the ass to come and pick it up.
I had avoided this moment as long as possible, but I was now completely out of many things that I had in that bag (um, underwear, for one). So, I made the long trek out to the airport via 4 different metro lines with a bit of trepidation coupled with a good dose of exhaustion and topped off by chunks of phlegm from the cold that had settled into my head over the past few days. My search for the baggage check was fairly typical of my experience with finding things here in Madrid (the lost part, not the unearthing of the airport hookup zone... you´ll see what I mean). I exited the metro at the Barajas stop (the name of the Madrid airport) and asked for directions at the information booth nearby. The kind woman informed me that I had exited at the wrong metro stop, that they had no such luggage check at Barajas and that I would need to board the metro again and return to the Aeropuerto stop. Fortunately, they let me fish my metro ticket out of the trash can to hop the metro back to the prior stop.
At the airport stop, I followed the signs for the gate that looked like my arrival gate from that initial trip into Spain. After about 5 moving sidewalks, I needed a bathroom break, so stopped by the nearest public toilets to pee and blow my nose. I entered the bathroom quickly and had to wade through several people to get to the stalls. When I found what I thought to be an open stall, I pushed the door and heard a loud grunt as the door slammed in my face. Hmmm, occupied, I guess, but unlocked and halfway open - my first clue that this was not a normal bathroom. I went to the next stall and was able to take care of my business, but then sort of nervous as to what I had unearthed here at airport Madrid. I made a point of washing my hands in the sink with a mirror view of the urinals, and sure enough, there was more than urinating going on in there. As I walked around looking for the luggage check, I kind of wondered what I had missed in the crazy bathroom. After asking directions three times and literally going completely in a circle twice, I finally found the luggage (and checked back on the bathroom - I wasn't really missing much anyway).
SO, the point is that I finally got my bag. So now I had to drag The Monster through four metro lines with three transfers, two of which did not have escalators and had several sets of up an down stairs. The Madrid metro is very good in the sense that it goes pretty much everywhere you´d need to go and runs frequently and efficiently. The down side is that you almost always have to transfer a couple of times. I seriously thought I was going to die dragging The Monster up that last set of stairs in the Plaza del Sol at rush hour, but NOW I HAVE IT!!! It has my laptop and a whole new world of clothes, my large Spanish dictionary (I bought a small one a couple of days ago, but it´s like the vocabulary of a 12 year old). Extra special added bonus - I was able to hop onto someone´s wireless connection from my hostel room!!! A Jetsons moment in the land of Flintstones. Very helpful, since I´m spending many hours online looking for a sublet or apartment share. I´ll also soon be able to post photos, YEAH!
The Lucky Ones - An Escalator in One of the Myriad Metro Tunnels
One of the Longer Metro Tunnels (NOT the longest)
I believe that my vacation has officially ended. It probably ended the night before last when I went bar hopping with Adrian, the Australian guy from my hostel. If not, it most certainly ended after my morning coffee with Aristide (also a hostel-ite... I luv gay hostels) from Venezuela yesterday morning. That is when I embarked upon my large-bag-retrieval voyage to the airport. When packing for this trip, I packed my backpack and my smaller suitcase with the things I would need for the Istanbul leg of the trip. I stuffed the larger bag (which I affectionately refer to as "The Monster") with everything I´d be wanting once I returned to Madrid. I dropped the big bag at a baggage check at the airport when I first arrived in Madrid. I knew when I dragged The Monster down the stairs to the storage area that night and then tried to lift it four feet up to the opening of the locker that it would be a pain in the ass to come and pick it up.
I had avoided this moment as long as possible, but I was now completely out of many things that I had in that bag (um, underwear, for one). So, I made the long trek out to the airport via 4 different metro lines with a bit of trepidation coupled with a good dose of exhaustion and topped off by chunks of phlegm from the cold that had settled into my head over the past few days. My search for the baggage check was fairly typical of my experience with finding things here in Madrid (the lost part, not the unearthing of the airport hookup zone... you´ll see what I mean). I exited the metro at the Barajas stop (the name of the Madrid airport) and asked for directions at the information booth nearby. The kind woman informed me that I had exited at the wrong metro stop, that they had no such luggage check at Barajas and that I would need to board the metro again and return to the Aeropuerto stop. Fortunately, they let me fish my metro ticket out of the trash can to hop the metro back to the prior stop.
At the airport stop, I followed the signs for the gate that looked like my arrival gate from that initial trip into Spain. After about 5 moving sidewalks, I needed a bathroom break, so stopped by the nearest public toilets to pee and blow my nose. I entered the bathroom quickly and had to wade through several people to get to the stalls. When I found what I thought to be an open stall, I pushed the door and heard a loud grunt as the door slammed in my face. Hmmm, occupied, I guess, but unlocked and halfway open - my first clue that this was not a normal bathroom. I went to the next stall and was able to take care of my business, but then sort of nervous as to what I had unearthed here at airport Madrid. I made a point of washing my hands in the sink with a mirror view of the urinals, and sure enough, there was more than urinating going on in there. As I walked around looking for the luggage check, I kind of wondered what I had missed in the crazy bathroom. After asking directions three times and literally going completely in a circle twice, I finally found the luggage (and checked back on the bathroom - I wasn't really missing much anyway).
SO, the point is that I finally got my bag. So now I had to drag The Monster through four metro lines with three transfers, two of which did not have escalators and had several sets of up an down stairs. The Madrid metro is very good in the sense that it goes pretty much everywhere you´d need to go and runs frequently and efficiently. The down side is that you almost always have to transfer a couple of times. I seriously thought I was going to die dragging The Monster up that last set of stairs in the Plaza del Sol at rush hour, but NOW I HAVE IT!!! It has my laptop and a whole new world of clothes, my large Spanish dictionary (I bought a small one a couple of days ago, but it´s like the vocabulary of a 12 year old). Extra special added bonus - I was able to hop onto someone´s wireless connection from my hostel room!!! A Jetsons moment in the land of Flintstones. Very helpful, since I´m spending many hours online looking for a sublet or apartment share. I´ll also soon be able to post photos, YEAH!
posted by Chromest*r at 12:37 PM
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