The Plane in Spain

• September 23
• September 24
• September 25
• September 26
• September 27
• September 28
• September 29
• September 30
• October 1
• October 2
• October 3
• October 4

Every Country has its heroes
and its eternal flame

Two years ago, my friend Brian and I started talking about taking a vacation in Spain. I've always been interested in seeing Spain. When I was a kid, I read about the Alhambra in Stoddard's Lectures, and I was hooked. Someday, I was going to see it for myself!

I engaged a travel agent, Kevin Kailey of Above and Beyond Tours and he went above and beyond in making our trip a magic and fabulous adventure. What follows are the (perhaps boring) journal entries of this vacation. I'm also including some photos. More complete photos will be posted online.

September 23

Yesterday at 2:30, Brian, Ron and I set out for Spain. The news is that we're actually here, although all of us feel pretty dead right now. We stayed up when we got here, wanting to adjust to Madrid time. So it's turning into an exceedingly long day.

A taxi picked us up at 2:30, then we were off to BWI. Our plane was delayed for about an hour at BWI, but the flight to Newark was only 34 minutes. We walked very quickly through Newark International to our gate, and immediately boarded our flight for Madrid. The plane was a Boeing 767 and had plenty of leg room. We arrived here in Madrid around 9:30 this morning after a very bumpy flight.

Ron and Brian at the Madrid Airport

Immigration was a little challenging. It took us about an hour and a half to get through. We got in line behind two other guys who are taking a two-week bus tour of Spain. It turns out that they are gay, too. What a surprise!

Finally, at Brian's suggestion, we changed immigration queues, and proceeded to zip through, pick up our bags, and hire a taxi.

The airport is fairly close in. It ends up that we're staying in the Chueca neighborhood, which is very gay. We have a nice but spartan room. And there's a rock concert going on in the street immediately below our window. We're staying at the Hostal Nuria on Calle Fuencarral.

After settling in, we took a long walk this afternoon, including a bite to eat in one of the neighborhood joints. On our walk we ran into two gypsy women who gave us flowers and invited us to a dance. They also lifted E90 from Ron and about the same from me. But they were really very friendly pickpockets. I guess we'll be much more alert in the future. Stay tuned. We continued our walk on Calle de Alcala and on the Paseo del Prado. We then walked through some of the gayer streets of the Chueca neighborhood and came up to the room to crash for a couple of hours

El Palacio de Communicaciones (Post Office)

After crashing we got up for more exploring. We ended up on Calle Pelayo having tapas at el Rincon. Some of the tapas were very good. Some were very interesting. The ensalada combinacion was very good.

So in front of our hotel is a writhing mass of about 10,000 20-somethings dancing to the music on a sound stage not more than 150 feet from our window. The music is very loud (here I'm sounding like an old fart), but exciting, alive, all that stuff parents warned us about when we went to rock concerts

We had to push our way through the crowd. Brian, being tall (and powerfully built) was the vanguard. Other people quickly figured out that he could get them through the crowd, too. It was like dancing in a conga line through a tightly packed disco. Brian has great legs, too. Coming back from the restaurant, we devised a different route.

Ummm, let's say Urinetown in Madrid? The Yellow River? I guess you gotta go sometime. At any rate, I have some pictures of the rock concert, which obscured the existence of a Starbucks in the little square behind the stage.