Tag: Layover

Santiago: Layover of Death

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That’ll stop those fare-dodgers.

Stepping onto my 14-hour flight to Santiago from Madrid yesterday (God time is a total blur right now), I got hemmed into just about the smallest space available on a passenger plane; in the very middle, bookended by two rather large German men who both promptly fell asleep and slumped into my personal space a little more with each clinical, efficient snore. Bearing in mind, we hadn’t even taken off by this point.

Strangely, I have seen both sides of LAN (Chile’s national airline) today. Madrid-Santiago, while a little squashed and filled with crying babies, was highly acceptable. However, the Santiago-Buenos Aires flight (which I’m actually currently on), is not so hot.

Cruising to Santiago, I hit up the wine, the whiskey, the gnocchi, the beer, the coffee, and the films. On an un-travel-related note, I don’t know if any of you have seen The Martian but I’d never gotten round to it until the flight, and I really have to ask; what’s the big deal? Rave reviews and massive box office for a pretty run-of-the-mill sci-fi film that mostly consists of a bearded Matt Damon listening to disco music and eating potatoes while simultaneously managing to entertain himself with the sound of his own voice for over a year. Also, I’m one for buying into the concepts laid out, even in particularly farfetched films, but there are vast fragments of The Martian were obviously compiled with little foresight. Two big questions hit me more prominently than most though:

  1. Why was Chiwetel Ejiofor, of British-Nigerian origin, cast as a Hindu man with the surname ‘Kapoor’? I mean there might be some unspoken explanation but to me it was just distracting.
  2. Matt Damon gets left behind after a big old storm on Mars and everyone’s like ‘oh shit there’s a storm’ like it happens all the time. How was there a storm of that strength on Mars. Even the most powerful Mars dust storms are barely a breeze.

Yes I know what you’re thinking but blah blah blah suspension of disbeblah can only go so far. Rant over.

So flight two is underway. Who would’ve known LAN still uses planes from the 19th century on their services? I feel like a Montgolfier Brother clinging to the side of a pink balloon. Or like I’ve been put in a cucumber that somebody has thrown across the Andes. I don’t think I need to say more really. In the end I guess it’s just a flight. In all honesty I’m distracted from the drawbacks by the fact that there’s a totally blind man sat next to me, and he’s spent the whole flight staring out the window.

On to Buenos Aires.

Gabe

Madrid: Queso y Nueces

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The view that greets you as you step off the Madrid Metro at Sol.

Somewhere in the highly regal, imperially-clad capital city of Spain, there is inexplicably a Costa Coffee, and in that aesthtically clinical, oddly silent Costa Coffee, I sit. I had always assumed the more refined palates of our European brothers would cringe at the quality of coffee churned out by UK chains, but the fact that the only thing I can see out the front door is a Starbucks (and a chihuahua wearing a hat) would indicate that my assumptions were wrong. But then again, Madrid, in the mere four hours I’ve been here, has already surprised me at pretty much every turn, which is saying something considering I was here literally eight months ago.

I mean, do I start with the fact that stepping into Barajas Airport Terminal 4 is like arriving into the inside of a giant pastry? Maybe that a street performer dressed as Homer Simpson wearing a Real Madrid shirt is running around the Puerta del Sol shouting ‘Vamos Barça’? Or do I top the list with the fact that not only is there a literal doppelganger of Sofia Vergara sat next to me with a cappuccino, but her subsequent doppelganger is on the opposite side of the room drinking a chai latte?

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Don’t forget to dance when you get off the metro you fool.

In fact, I’ll opt for neither of those, and go for the truly unique sandwich bar in the city centre I found myself in at about 4pm. With undefined ‘meat’ swinging from every inch of available wall space, I found a small counter with about 20 burly Spanish men, all of whom turned to look at me as I approached, all simultaneously revealing a glass of cava in their hand as they did so. The strangest part? None of them were there together. It was just a casual buncha guys, drinking sparkling wine in the afternoon, surrounded by meat.

I sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a glass of red wine, for which the bartender asked for €0.50(!!!), and noticed a glass cabinet to my right, filled with sandwiches. Once I sussed that sandwiches were only €0.60 each, I jumped to order four at once. Problem is, I understand that ‘queso’ in Spanish means cheese, but am not all that familiar with further culinary vocabulary. What I did notice, however, is that every single sandwich in the cabinet was a mixture of ‘queso’ and another ingredient. Completely at random, my furiously pointing index finger picked out cheese and salami (nice), cheese and tuna (hmm…), cheese and morcilla (yes, that is black pudding), and finally, ‘queso y nueces’. Any Spanish speakers here are already one step ahead of me I’m sure; I had lumbered myself with a cheese and nuts sandwich. Debauchery is not the word.

The first small part of the first leg of my journey is over, but this 12-hour layover is really starting to drag. In fact, despite it dragging to a near-painful degree, I can still sum it up in a way you would understand. I came to Madrid in May with my good friend James to go to the Estadio Vicente Calderón and watch Barcelona win the La Liga title against Atletico Madrid. At one point in the match, then-Barcelona player Pedro took the most spectacular first touch after a long ball from Jordi Alba. Despite it becoming one of my major character flaws, I have spent many a day and night thinking about that touch, yet never found a video of it. So what have I done today? That’s right, I just re-watched the entire match just to find it. I mean, it’s a good touch and all but…

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An inadvertent summary of my day

Back to Madrid Airport for the next leg. See y’all later.

Gabe