Troy over packed. Typical. I think I have about 18 pairs of shoes in my shoe catalog. I think 15 of them are Chuck Taylor All-stars. And yet I packed four pairs of shoes. Do you know how many I actually wore? Two. I packed three pairs of jeans. How many did I wear? One. I brought two black T-shirts. Why, you might ask? Because I’m an asshole who likes carrying stuff I’ll never need. So there’s a lesson for next time. Pack less.
I did pack a little travel iron, and that ended up being a good call. And I had plenty of clean underwear…
The plane from Minneapolis to JFK was easy, uneventful, boring. I watched The Dawn Wall. I highly recommend it. It’s a documentary about a rock climber. I napped a little. And I pondered my anxiety about spending two weeks exploring a country without the ability to speak Spanish. I have some Spanish, but really, let’s be honest. My typical conversation in Spanish:
“Hola,” says I, breathing easy at getting that out. “Dónde está el baño?” Then I made that face all humans make when they break something they don’t own and can’t pretend it was someone else.
“Hola,” the Information Desk Guy replies. With a wry and friendly smile he says, “por el pasillo, *words* izquierda y *word* por las *word*”.
Well yeah, obviously, I’m supposed to go down the hall, *word* left and *word* at the *word*.”
So yeah, I walked around until I saw the universal sign for bathroom.I’m being a little glib. It was easy. What very little Spanish I speak, coupled with whatever English the other guy had, plus some hand gestures of varying efficacy, did the trick. We never got lost, or trafficked, or sold a time share. In fact everyone we met was friendly and helpful.
Anyway, She and I made our way to the international gate that was to take us from NYC to Madrid. We had a little time, had a little lunch, talked a little about how we were going to meet up with Older Son and my brother in Madrid before catching a train to Toledo, where Younger Son lives and goes to school. Wrapping that up, we walked the 30 yards back to the gate where boarding was about to begin.
We’d stood there leaning against the glass of a moving walkway for only a few minutes when Her name was announced. Curious, we stepped up to the counter. The agent, after we gave our names merely smiled, said “have a nice day”, handed us two boarding passes, and dismissed us.
It took a moment of scanning the passes before She realized we’d been upgraded to First Class! All Her years of business travel paid off!
We boarded and it took just a moment for us to realize the scope of our good luck. These First Class seats were those that turn into a bed. I was now a King among men. I could drink Heineken, for free. I was going to eat food with a fork, not just pour .5 oz of pretzels into my mouth from a bag like some kind of commoner. I would sleep all the way to Madrid, the sleep of the unencumbered, the unconcerned.
Nah, I didn’t sleep but for a couple hours. I was restless but not uncomfortable. Plus, I snore. Loudly. My snoring would’ve caused some kind of incident. We’d surely have to divert to someplace like Halifax where they’d drag me off the plane like a C-list celebrity while She followed along behind wishing She’d drafted a pre-nup when She’d had the chance. Too late honey, way too late.
Though I didn’t sleep a full night, I still felt rested enough. I thumbed through my now well-worn book on Spain by Rick Steves. It was still a potential fiction, a book of wishes and want-tos. It became later what it’s meant to be; a guide, a quick reference. It was tricky that book, like magic. It was first a book of aspiration, representing possibility. Then it became an Insider’s tool, a diary, a journal. Now it’s a record of some places I’ve been. A souvenir of the highest order.
When we landed, and packed up our things, I stood up as quickly as I could. I do that on planes. I’m fully aware that some people look at me and scornfully think, “that’s not getting you off the plane any faster, jackass.” That’s OK, I get it. I’m a fidgety guy who struggles with sitting too long and has bad knees. I’d sit on a bucket in the aisle if it meant I could stand immediately and get off the plane quickly. So while I’m standing, I’m looking around the First Class area. It looks like a weird tubular barracks with rows of beds and blankets and pillows all about. At any rate, I was profoundly grateful at the lucky stroke that gave us such an auspicious beginning.
We got off the plane and sought out the baggage claim. Once there, and having deciphered the arrivals screen and picked up our bags, we found the information desk.
“Habla Inglés?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “A little.” They always said “a little” yet inevitably knew more English than I knew Spanish. Maybe they don’t understand the word little…
“What’s the best way to get to Atocha (the train station)?” I asked.
She described two ways to get there, one the subway and the other a cab, each would take almost an hour and would be somewhere between 18 and 20 euros. But, she said, if it were her, she’d just take the city bus. It was much cheaper and would only take 20 minutes. It’s good to know people.
So, twenty minutes and 6 euros later, She and I arrived at Atocha train station. It was confusing and striking. Beautiful in places, chaotic everywhere. Unless you knew what you were doing, which of course we did not. We sat on a little retaining wall bordering a lovely indoor garden. We sent messages to Older Son and Brother, starting the process of Marco Polo at the Madrid Atocha Train Station.
They arrived shortly, a little shredded from a very late night and a very new schedule. It’s true in Spain, they don’t eat dinner until 9 or 930, and the party doesn’t end until people have to go to work or church.
It took us a bit of wandering and wondering to find ourselves in the right line at the right booth at the right time with the right currency, but we soon had train tickets in hand. And from there, Toledo…
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