The Odyssey

The last week or so at work before my holidays was typically stressful. Handholding the temp doing my old job, trying to learn my new job, dealing with the typical IT crises (read: small problems that people make a big deal out of) and trying not to stress about making the plane on time. Not to mention, much as I love my parents and how much I enjoyed showing them the city I live in, having them around meant sleeping on the floor in the living room and living with five people (though, mercifully, it meant the burden of nourishing myself could be temporarily handballed to my more than capable father). Finally I was able to bid a quick goodbye to my colleagues and rushed out of the office at 15:00, anxious for my holidays to begin. Before they could though, a marathon (12 hour) journey by tram, bus, foot, aeroplane and car to Rodrigo's apartment in Barcelona.

I checked in at the Iberia desk (though my ticket had "British Airways" printed on it in at least three places in several garish colours) and eventually boarded the plane, seated between two serious looking businessmen. The three of us studiously ignored each other all the way to Madrid as is customary on all manner of public transport in the Western hemisphere.

10 minutes to touchdown at Barajas, and a crackly but friendly disembodied voice announced the connecting flights from Madrid. My flight to Barcelona was not included. Only then did it occurr to me that I had to disembark, collect my luggage, locate the check-in desk, check in, find my departure gate, and get on my next flight in 50 minutes. Oops. Fortunately the late hour meant the airport was relatively empty, and I was able to powerwalk off the plane and run down to the luggage claim.

Madrid Barajas has more than 20 baggage belts, all of which are numbered.Usually this would help, but whoever designed the layout for the airport had their own weird, totally impenetrable logic. After going through numerous doors, peering through floor to ceiling glass panes and following arrows seemingly pointed at walls of solid brick, I finally located baggage belt number 15, although I had the feeling of being a kind of 21st century "Alice in Wonderland". My bewildered almost-panic was of course, completely in vain as the tape revolved for almost 15 minutes with the same two green and black bags before our luggage began to appear.

Now with only 30 minutes until my flight to BCN, I began to worry. I grabbed my pack and ran for the "Salida" (exit). More arrows and two flights of stairs later, I found the Iberia information centre, who pointed out the check in, which proceeded at a reasonable pace and now to find my departure gate.

There are two types of airports. The first includes airports like Beauvais, Hobart, Rio de Gallegos and Dublin. These have all the prerequisites of airports - check in desks, security checks, coffee vendors, and planes. Not much else. The other kind of airport, LAX, Ezeiza, Heathrow, Barajas and their ilk are the size of a middling town in a second world country, can sustain a population of 50,000 for a week, where the departure gates are not only lettered and numbered but colour coded, and the time from check in to departure gates is measured in minutes and those in double figures. I started at a fast walk, was soon jogging and then broke into a run, following the red squares to gate H06, dodging people, baggage, prams, security guards and postcard stands for what seemed like about 5 kilometres. Gate H06 was predictably located at the end of a very long pier of departure gates, but thankfully they were still boarding the aircraft when I appeared, hot, sweaty, ruddy and panting, heart in mouth and passport in hand. I got on the plane (again in a middle seat, those Iberia people must really hate me) between a sour looking woman and a youngish man who offered me chewing gum (a nice gesture, politely declined as I could smell the sugar in the chewing gum from where I was sitting). Finally I relaxed, finished the (incredibly boring) book I had bought for the trip, and tried to sleep the rest of the way.

By the time I made it to Barcelona, I had been travelling by foot, train, but and plane for 11 hours, I hadn't eaten in 13 hours, and I felt less like I was on vacation and more like someone had taken to me with a solid oak cricket bat. Unfortunately this was not the end of my travels as we got lost on our way home from the airport and subsequently spent 20 minutes looking for a parking space at 3am. We finally parked about four blocks from the apartment and walked back in the freezing cold with my luggage. We sat down to a quick meal of cheese sandwiches, prawns and potatoes, I had a shower and finally sweet, sweet bed.