And he’s off once again…

My next trip is taking me back to España.

Not to walk more of the Camino this time, but for a few days in Sevilla: the capital of Andalucía, the southernmost of the comunidades autónomas (autonomous communities or regions) of Spain.

So far, I’ve already been on quite an adventure and we’re still at the airport!

After the usual fun coming through security, I got some lunch and then joined what seemed to be a very long queue at the nominated gate. Roughly when the gate was meant to close but with no suggestion we were running late, the queue began to move slowly forward. When my turn came to reach the front, I presented my passport and boarding card. The computer said “no” and the screen flashed red. The agent said this was a flight to Dublin with Ryanair, which was running late but seemed to have been assigned the same gate as the Seville flight. At least a third of the crowd were also waiting for the Seville flight. We were told to stand to the side of the gate, and the agents said their system also said we’d be at the same gate.

After a little while, Ryanair’s app started to show a “pending status” for our flight, still at the original gate.

After another 20 minutes, the gate changed to a new number, one of the bus gates. The crowd duly made its way to the new gate and separated into priority and standard boarding lines.

After what seemed like an eternity, our boarding cards were finally processed and we moved into a slightly different part of the queuing zig zag, still at the gate. Eventually a bus arrived and we were asked to board.

We stood for another 15-20 minutes on the bus, with the doors still open.

Finally, the bus doors closed and we were driven for about 2 minutes, back to the outside of the gate we started at. Our plane was parked just next to the original gate. The bus ride took less time than the walk to the new gate.

Finally, we’re ready to depart!Read more