Dinner in Madrid

When booking my flights I wanted to arrive in Buenos Aires in the morning to avoid 'nighttime in a new country also how do you speak Spanish' stresses. This meant an 8hr stopover in Madrid between flights. It sounded pretty good, the plan was to leave the airport. I imagined a nice dinner in a nice Spanish restaurant setting me up nicely for the rest of my journey, and leaving me feeling confident and relaxed about my impending trip. Simples!

DID THIS HAPPEN

When I first got to Gatwick everything was going super smoothly, with me sending smug WhatsApps about how easy everything was. Unfortunately my 10:50am flight was then delayed to a 20:00 flight.

On the bright side the massive delay and complete lack of communication from the airline led to strong bonds being quickly formed between me and fellow passengers. There were three points of near-riot, the closest being when we were told to queue but there was nothing at the end of the queue. Being British I stood happily without questioning this for 15 mins but the others had no such excuse.

I met a woman who brought her dog on the plane with her in a tiny green sports bag. The dog (Heidi) literally did not move for the entire 12 hours we were there, other than to sometimes wee on a newspaper when let out of the bag. At one point the owner did worry she had stopped breathing.

Another of our party was prevented from passing through passport control in Madrid (so near yet so far!) for no reason- he is from Jordan and says this happens to him quite a lot! Classic profiling? I hope he got through.

So I did have my dinner in Madrid- at 2am- in a hotel after missing my connection. To give you an idea of quality the dinner came in a plastic bag and included a coconut yogurt (who invented those??). I had no clothes as my big bag went off to Bs As so I washed my pants in the sink, hairdryered them and then slept shivering and naked under layers of towels. And they say travelling isn't glamorous!

However I did have a good buffet breakfast in the hotel the next day with my temporary new friends.

The moral is that although the day was a nightmare and it took me 17 hours to get to Madrid from Gatwick, I actually now feel quite comfortable about Buenos Aires. I no longer fear meeting people because I have met people already, and it was pretty easy. It was fun to chat to randoms and I survived the palava. I am confident and relaxed...just not for the reasons I thought!

So bring on the next challenge! (Not too soon though please)

Pic 1 is my delicious Madrid dinner. Pic 2 is the large glass of wine I imbibed in Gatwick after the queuing debacle. Pic 3 is a sneaky awkward picture of woman with dog- the small blurry green thing on the trolley contains the dog!Read more