THE LOOOOONGEST DAY

As usual, we didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before starting out on our trip to Spain and Portugal, and waking at 4:30 to ablute and throw the last of the packing together didn’t help.  Chuck and Alice did the chauffer honors, picking us up at 5:30;  just like old (well, just last September) times in the BMW wagon with bags in the back.  No traffic at that hour so we breezed to the airport and decamped at the United terminal.  Of all the combinations of flights and airlines I researched, United had by far the best coming and going times, and when we allowed Collette Tours to make our reso’s, they selected the exact same flights; so, once again we submitted to UA’s cramped seats and nonexistent meals.  Taking self-service the extra mile, United had only one agent manning three counters.  Using the kiosk check-in, I thought I had printed out all our stuff, but as we were walking away the gal who had been behind us ran up and handed us our second leg (Newark to Madrid) boarding passes which had waited forever before spitting out while she was trying to input her data.  Whew, glad she was a good Samaritan.  I stopped off at the men’s room to inhale my morning Advair, which drew a puzzled look from some young lad (“Dad, what’s that man snorting?”).  One good thing about the upgrading of the LAX terminals is that some edible food is being introduced, in our case it was a Wolfgang Puck outpost that was decent.  We had breakfast there and bought wrapped sandwiches for the flight to Newark, as United only offers to sell you crap, giving nothing away.  The flight itself was just fine, save for the lack of leg room and seats that are a chiropractor’s dream.  No lumbar support whatsoever.  The seat actually bows away from your lower back.  Pot bellies, sure.  Pot backs?  Never seen one.  Fortunately, I always fly now with an inflatable lower back rest that works great.  One thing I will praise United for is the selection of movies and other entertainment.  At least 60 movies, with lots of new stuff, including several of the best-picture Oscar nominees.  Not bad at all.  Of course, they screwed that up (literally) by having Loni’s earphone jack being filled with a screw that we couldn’t extricate.  Nice plane servicing, United. 

This trip is a big step for me, as I was very sick lung-wise in January, and slowly recovered in February.  By March I was feeling fairly good, and my allergy doc prescribed some new stuff in an off-label use (okaayyyy . . .) that actually seemed to work at clearing my breathing.  Carpe diem, so I quickly dreamed up this venture, made the reso’s, and got ready to go with less than a month before departure.  But, how would I fare in an airplane environment?  Things weren’t helped when the small kid in the seat behind mine starting sneezing and coughing as soon as we took off.  Great, all I need is a respiratory challenge.  It got worse when Loni happened to talk with his mother.  She reported that the father was spending the flight in the bathroom throwing up.  Auuggghhh!  I calmed a bit when she later said it was probably food poisoning.  Long story short, I endured my usual health anxieties, felt weird on occasion, but nothing happened.  Good news on the ear front as I had clearable clogging both ascending and descending.  Hurray!  No more exploding head agony.  No more hours of deafness.  I’ll have to send a thank-you note to Dr. K, my EMT who operated on my sinuses. 

Enroute, we had nice views of the Great Lakes shorelines, with lots of floating ice visible.  Upon landing at Newark, while taxiing to the gate I rummaged through my bag and found I had left our iPhone at home.  Fortunately, I did have our ancient iPod for internet use, but it doesn’t have messaging and it’s Facetime app no longer works because the operating system is too old and can’t be upgraded.  I also realized that my Tilley hat was AWOL.  Yikes, three weeks of (hopefully) Iberian sun and no hat.  I need a minder.

Three hours to kill between flights, but we headed straight for the gate to make sure we were at the head of the “C” line peons.  While we were waiting there, we noticed that our plane was waiting at the gate at least two hours before boarding time.  So, how efficient is United?  They called everyone for boarding about a half-hour before ETD.  Loni, as usual, had long ago popped up and started standing at the head of the peasant-boarding queue.  There were a lot of folks in the “elite” and “priority” lines ahead of us, but even more were lined up behind us.  However, we did not start boarding.  We waited and waited and waited.  “Cleaning and catering,” they said.  On a plane that’s been sitting there for hours?  We finally started the boarding process at the scheduled ETD.  Leading the line of the great unwashed, we found plenty of overhead bin space for our two small (i.e., they actually would fit in those sizing boxes that the airlines threaten you with, but seemingly never actually use) carry-ons.  Those behind us did not fair so well.  Those bins quickly filled up with full-size suitcases and multiple boxes that some were hauling aboard, and chaos in the aisles ensued.  I really thought they were going to come to blows.  No one was moving, everyone was shouting.  It took forever for the attendants to sort things out (as in, haul out the bags of the end-of-the-liners, instead of enforcing the rules on everyone).  Once airborne, it was a night flight, so the dimmed cabin lights soothed the savage breasts.  No sleep for us, I never can get a wink on a plane, so I watched three movies (Hunger Games 2 [Zzzzzzzz], Wild [dopey slut hikes to zen], Kingsman Secret Service [dopey good fun!]) and other fare.  Seven scrunched-up hours later, we landed at Madrid.

I swear the schlep from the gate to the baggage claim was one full mile, including going up and down several sets of stairs, and following a rat’s maze of passages.  A minor panic as our bags had not appeared while most of our fellow passengers had claimed and decamped, but they finally tumbled off.  Easy entry through passport, no customs check at all, and there was our smiling Collette Tours rep, Nadine, waiting with our nameboard as we exited.  Made it!  She collected four other passengers, and we boarded our bus to go to the hotel.  It’s only 11:00 a.m. here, but is the next day, the 12th, so I’ll end this narrative with a shot of the Hotel Princessa, our home for the next two nights.