Update

It is 9:37 am.  My flight leaves at 11:15 am.  According to the Departures sign, I will have gate info in 33 minutes.

Travel Tip

Nowadays, many of us use mobile boarding passes.  Quick tip - don't hit the back button just before you try to get on the plane, then hold up the line because you don't remember where you saved it, and then give them the one for your next connection so it doesn't scan.

I did let people go in front of me, but that was not fun.

Madrid Airport

I am not that fond of the Madrid Airport (sorry Madrid!).  When you arrive from outside the EU, you're at the "foreign" terminal.  You have to walk, and walk, and walk uphill, and that's just the freaking jetway!

Then there's a loooong hall with a bunch of moving sidewalks, to get to the escalators.  There's like 3 long escalators to get to the bottom floor.  Then you hit the customs line.

We got here around 7:30 am so it wasn't that bad.  Then a walk, and security again.  They have turnstile things where you scan your boarding pass, which helps. And I didn't have to take off my shoes.

So, security, where I got swiped for explosives.  I'm not sure if it's random or some weird sweat thing.  Then it's another long escalator down, to the tram. 

The waiting area was packed.  I had to wait for the 2nd train to come through.  Then it's up all those escalators to get to the main terminal. 

From here it splits off, assuming you know which terminal you need. If it's more than about 2 hours until your flight leaves, then it just says HJK, which are the 3 terminals on this side.

I have 3 hours, so I looked for food.  I stopped at this pastry/sandwich place and got an egg and bacon croissant.  It's not what you think. The bacon was more like ham cut off the bacon bits of the pig.  I took it off.   The egg was more like a really chunky egg salad/deviled egg.  It was pretty good!  Frank - I ate eggs and they didn't make me sick.

So now I'm on the backside if the K terminal, which is quieter because the gates are on the other side.

More later.

Flying

Well, it started off good.  Saw a few movies, had no trouble getting out of my seat to get to the restroom.  Then there was turbulence.

I've flown quite a bit, and been in some pretty good turbulence.  This wasn't even the worst, so I'm hoping something I ate was assisting. 

We went up and down, and side to side, and I got really nauseous.  I mean, I took the puke bag out of the seat pocket and had it open in my hand.  After a while I fell asleep and felt okay after I woke up - almost 3 hours later.  We were descending and there was a breakfast box on the tray next to me.

On the way!

Holy fucking crap!  I'm on my way to Madrid, then Alicante.  The plane is an A-350, and the very last row has 2 seats across instead of 3. So of course, I got the window side. And there's no one next to me! Wow!

Dinner was pork in gravy with mashed potatoes and zucchini.  Yum!  Then an orzo cold salad thing? And a roll and brownie. 

So far, so good.

Testing

Been a while. Just testing my phone.

Last Thoughts on Valencia

So, what are my last thoughts on our Valencia trip?  Well, there are a few.  If you must drive, get an automatic.  There was so much starting and stopping around town, and roundabouts, that it was insane.  Add to that the fact that you often can't get where you're trying to go.  If we wanted to turn left on a street, there usually wasn't a left turn there.  So we'd go down and try to U-turn.  But there was no U-turn.  So we'd try to make several rights, but the streets were one way the opposite direction.  It was a little stressful.

The food was amazing!  And you can sit and just enjoy life for hours.  You will not get a bill until you ask for it.  It was very relaxing.

Valencia is a dog town.  There were dogs everywhere!  Mostly smaller ones, but some big ones too.  And almost no dog poop on the ground.  Everyone had a baggie.

Valencia was very relaxing.  VERY relaxing.  It was awesome.  Just sitting in a cafe was so nice I could feel stress just melting away.  We both loved the city a lot!

Our flight home was a mess.  We were up for about 21 hours.  First there was the insane walking around the Madrid airport.  Then the Madrid passport control.  We only had an hour to get through Madrid and our plane said Last Call so we were really booking it, which meant we didn't get to fill up our water bottles.  The flight was an airbus which was better than the 787.  Then we had to walk all over O'Hare and go through US Customs, which took a long time.  We were sweating the entire way.  Then we find out that our bags are not at O'Hare.  So when we got home we double checked and then had to file a missing bag claim.  Apparently our bags never made it out of Madrid.  Hopefully they'll show up in the next day or two.

So, traveling was a pain in the ass, but the trip was worth it.  :)