Yo Habla Espanol?

Madrid Airport, and the mystery of flight 8894.

We are leaving Brussels for Platjia de Gandia today. We walked from our hotel to the client in the morning, walked back, grabbed our suitcases, used the trains, and ended up at the International Airport of Brussels. The game plan is to fly to Madrid, then connect from Madrid to Valencia on flight ocho ocho nueve catro(8894). The terminal 4 in Madrid is 470,000 m² big. It is one of the world’s largest terminals in terms of area. (Quotes from Wikipedia). The running distance from one end to the other is about 11 minutes if you ever participated in the Olympics in a track and field specialty. It would take me about 25 minutes. Needless to say, we gated at one extremity of the terminal, and the flight for Valencia was at the other extremity. We have about 90 minutes of transit time. Why me worry, right? On the FIRST electronic board we spot after landing, I see “Valencia 8894 7:15 Final Call”.. In other words, this cannot be good. Anyone who travelled before can attest to this, final call means they are about to close the doors. Now, on our tickets, it says “Boarding 8:45” or something similar, can our plane leave 2 hours early? Without us? So we picked up our bags, and we literally ran through the airport, all the way to the departing gate at the other end. As we are running, I can see the electronic boards saying “Final Call”, “Gate Closed”, and “Departed”, for flight 8894. So of course, we arrived just in time to see the plane leaving the area. I show my boarding pass to the girl at the gate, she looks at me and smile, and she tells me to be patient, everything is under control, just show up at 8:45. I am not quite convinced that my Spanish was up to par on this conversation. I remembered seeing an Iberia counter when we left our plane, and we have some time now, I guess, plus, there is another Iberia flight leaving for Valencia in 20 minutes by it. There goes another run through the Madrid terminal, all the way to the other end. And see what is the dealio here, with the Iberia counter, were we bumped to another flight? Like the one leaving in 20 minutes right behind her? I am told again not to worry, and being patient. I go back and check the board. I see flight 8892 for Valencia, I see flight 8896 leaving for Valencia at 10:30 at night. There is a gap there, oh, right around 8894? Nothing on the electronic board. We go back to the other end of the terminal to wait by the gate that is written on our ticket. This is our third run across the terminal. Lo and behold, at 8:45 we start boarding for our flight to Valencia. The God Almighty Electronic Board, that controls all that is flight related, is still oblivious to our flight. I am THEN told that the board is sometimes wrong, and that they knew it. It would have been nice to know about it, as opposed to be told to be patient.

Una Habitacion? No no. Duo Habitacion!

Steve finally gets a rental car in Valencia, we now have a 50 minute drive to our hotel on the beach! Ah! I am looking forward to some form of relaxation, the beach crowded with beautiful women. Finally some time off on this trip. We get to the hotel whereabouts; again the TomTom is useless because I didn’t take down the exact address. We are roaming on the streets and then we finally get there. Our receptionist could easily supplement her income by working an auction. She was talking faster than I could decipher what she was saying. I think even other people who were Spanish would have had a hard time. Steve is becoming quite pale, since he found out that our client on Monday will be holding the meeting in Spanish, since their English and French are lacking. And he now realize that their Spanish, here, is not language school type of Spanish, they are very fluent in it. We are being told that there is “Uno Habitacion : Gilles Russell” I have one room. She proceeds to tell me that the hotel is fully booked, and that Steve will not have a room tonight. I am quite positive that I have booked 2 rooms, so I repeat myself, going “Duo habitacion” while gesticulating enough to make her understand that there is no way in hell I am sleeping with Steve tonight. After 3 to 5 minutes of trying to make her understand that she is wrong, and I am right. Steve pulls out his passport, gives it to her, and see that she has a reservation for “Steve Desjardins” We are saved. I am at “Planta Cinco” and so is Steve. It just means we are on the 5th floor, I picked up the word “Planta” by glancing at the elevator map back in Madrid, since we ran by the elevators 3 times. Steve is starting to worry about his Spanish, and I need a drink. The hotel documentation I got from my travel agent, who is also my cousin, told me of a bar on the roof of the hotel. If I cannot make it to Ibiza, I might as well relax at the local drinking hole, and well, er, practice my “Spanish”. We go to the roof, dictionary in hand, and electronic translator, and all that. All kidding aside, communication is very slow if you use those things, I can play charades faster. It does not do much for my learning of Spanish, but it can get me a beer faster. Over the next couple of hours, we managed to communicate with our bartender, Alexsandra. She is from Romania, moved to Madrid 2 years ago, she has been in Gandia for 4 months, she has a boy that is 5 months old, her husband, well, not really husband, more like a boyfriend, is Andres, and he is a cook at Miquetes on Guillerme Mas, by Carrer Major. So, through all that, there were street names, people’s name. We drew maps, etc.. We also managed to find out where the local Laundromat was, how to get our laundry done, what to do on Saturday, and that our Spanish leaves a lot to be desired. Time for bed. It was a long day, woke up in Brussels, sleeping in Gandia. Oy.

The morning after, Luxembourg, and do you speak flemmish?

The Morning After.

After wondering most of the night how will I pay the phone bill, I passed out. Now, here is a funny thing when you are in a big hotel room. It is, indeed, well, big. I never asked for a wakeup call, I usually wake up at a decent hour, and do my things. Our agenda for the day is just to go to Luxembourg, and meet our client, and then come back. How far can Luxembourg be, really? it is merely a couple of inches away from Brussels on the map. I slowly open my eyes staring at the clock, 10:20am… I hear faint sound coming form far away, very far away. The sound reminds me a little bit of home. Ah! here it goes again. It is the door bell. You know, the room was sooo big, that in my bedroom, I could barley hear the door bell. That could be quite problematic. I rushed to the door, to find a visibly worried Steve, who has been ringing the door bell on and off for the last 20 minutes. We have to get ready and cross those two inches into Luxembourg.

Luxembourg.

We have just experienced a memorable lapse of judgement. We have a meeting in Luxembourg in 3 and a half hours. We are in Brussels. We have no travel arrangements. The only thing I know about Luxembourg is that is is somewhat South East from our location, and it is a very small country. It would almost fit in my bedroom. I suggest taking a train, Steve would rather rent a car. After seeing how the cab driver drove the night before, I would still rather take a train, but if Steve wants to drive, more power to him. It might make nice stories to write from an hospital bed. The closest car rental location is about 10 minutes away. By Taxi. So here we go again, in a taxi, driven by a persian. It is quite funny the impact a taxi driver can have on someone in a 10 minute drive. He is persian, he explains that persians are nice iranians that do not want to bombard Israel into oblivion. He was tortured for a while in a prison, they smashed his toes repeatly with a hammer. Just thinking about him makes him shivers, and really, it makes me shiver a bit too. Oh the stories he will tell his grand kids later. I try to focus on something else, like, using the TomTom to figure out how far is Luxembourg. As I am doing so, Steve is asking our persian similar questions. Funny how the “Oh Shit” resonates twice in my brain. As the driver says “Oh about 2, maybe 2 and a half hours”, The TomTom, in harmony, starts flashing 2h14m travel time. We still have no cars, We might have trouble finding the place, our schedule just got a bit tight. The car rental place is offering us a car, for the modest sum of 200 Euros for the day. That is like 300$ or so, similar to my phone bill. We are really out of options at this stage, and the car rental happens to be at the train station. Taking the train back and forth to Luxembourg is a lot cheaper, like 84 euros for both of us, return trip. It takes 3 hours and it leaves in 10 minutes. Is it worth 112 Euros to arrive 40 minutes earlier, potentially, if we don’t get lost? Not really. We jumped on the train. We arrived 75 minutes late, but our client was warned of our travelling conditions, since we borrowed people’s cell phones on the train, in return of canadian coins. I still think that the maps are wrong. There is no way it should be that long to travel two inches. Our meeting went fine, and we took the train back.

Do you speak flemmish?

For those of you who don’t know Steve, he tends to dress the part as a salesperson. And there is NOTHING wrong with that. (Hi Steve!). There is nothing wrong going to a business meeting in a pinstripe suit, with an expensive tie, and nice italian leather shoes. I tend to dress more casually, excepts at weddings, especially my own. Now, we are on a three-hour long train ride back to Brussels, it is around 9pm, and coming aboard the train is a group of highly respectable flemmish citizens, and they had too much to drink. There are like 8 to 12 individuals, in their 30ies, maybe 40ies. One of them is obviously the clown of the group. They are yelling at each other, but they are happy drunks. They are of course, staring at the 2 strangers in the train. That would be me, and the sharp dressed man. Now the clown is taking a sudden interest in me and Steve. In the back of my mind, I am thinking; This is not good. He comes and sit in front of me, and he starts engaging into a fun conversation with me, in flemmish. I, on the other end, let him know, in english, that I am french. Now that I think of it, that was pretty stupid, I could have told him in french that I was english. It still makes no sense. Anyhow, I didn’t know that the flemmish hates the french. Mr. Happy is giving me a weird look, makes a comment, and the crowd start laughing. I have that weird feeling that he was not complimenting my hairstyle. And now, the surreal part of this journey is starting. If you were wondering when the fun would start, that was a defining moment. Our clown, who I am told by another passenger is the director of a local museum,  is slowly turning his head and starts staring at Mr Fashion himself, Steve…He stands up, and go and sits beside Steve. He stares at Steve like a kid would stare at a giant lollypop. You can actually sense that he is thinking about what can he possibly do to Steve. I am laughing hysterically, but on the inside. The guy then starts polishing Steve’s shoes, ruffles his hair, readjust Steve’s tie. and then, he picks up Steve’s tie, and he blows his nose in it. Steve is not amused. I am dying of laughter. The guy means no harm, but he might have crossed the imaginary line of what strangers will tolerate without retaliation. Everyone is laughing on the train. It is nice to see that bullying is stil alive and well, even for grownups. We cannot reach our destination fast enough, and lo and behold, we are all going out at the same stop. We go back to the Brussels Grill for supper, beside our hotel, because really, we just cannot take any more excitement tonight. Our clumsy waitress is still there, and she is asking us if we were there the night before. I told her it wasn’t us, but we have a set of twins that might have been there the night before. She will realize that I was kidding before dessert.

Ireland, Brussels, my room, and the dreaded phone call.

Ireland.

Our flight to Ireland was uneventful. But I cannot emphasize enough on this old saying of mine “If you do not know where you are going, you are most likely gonna end up where you do not want to be.” We landed in Dublin, and jumped in a cab. To go and see our client, in Swords. Swords, is a town/neighborhood/notsure around Dublin. After we got in the cab, and the cab driver asks us where we are going, it dawn on us, well, on Steve, that we are not quite sure where we are going. Those things happens on trips around multiple cities, and have about 30 different transportation schemes scheduled. Our cab driver was not that understanding of our situation. We knew we were going in “Swords”. I was relieved to see signs that said “Swords” on the road, so we didn’t make things up. I was a little worried that it was 5 miles away. It meant that we had like 5-10 minutes to provide an address to the very unpleasant cab driver. If you read this, Pat Murphy, yes, I meant you. we finally stopped in Swords, got a phone number, our gracious cab driver called the number and asked for directions.

Brussels – I know why the lil guy is pissing.

Nice business meeting, and we then flew to Brussels. We have seen Swords. So much for Ireland. Once we landed in Brussels, we were pondering between taking a cab, or renting a car. Renting a car would make sense since we had to go to Luxembourg the next day. It was getting late, and I was not in a mood to drive, or be driven by Steve, our track record with the TomTom was a good indication that we should just cab it. Remember that we have been up since 4:30am, and it was not a pleasant sunrise. I am tired. So we get in the cab, and our very young cab driver was eager to please, since we asked them to bring us to our hotel fast. This cab driver was a tad bit aggressive on his driving skills. Wait, no.. He made Montreal Drivers look like pussies. Coming out of a tunnel, you know with walls all around us, he tried to pass a car on this one-lane wide exit, by scratching the side or the car on the wall, just a bit, enough to make me dig my nails in the dash. He did some hairpin right turns, from the second lane, while cars were coming in the first lane. I started wondering if my will was up to date. After jumping over some side curbs, we landed on the sidewalk, in front of our hotel. 40 Euros. I had to swallow my heart back. I almost pissed my pants.

My hotel room.

We arrived at the Sheraton, Place Rougier. It might be 9 or 10 o’clock at night.There seems to be a misunderstanding. The clerk is telling Steve that she is sorry that we have no facilities in our room, or something like that. She is really sorry. I elbow Steve, we better have bathrooms in our room, man.. Steve is telling me to be quiet, but I am visibly upset at the thought of having to go in hallways to pee. Steve, on the other hand, seems really happy and excited, and I do not have a clue why. the more excited he gets, the more worried I am about his sanity. He obviously didn’t hear what I heard. So, as we get in the elevator, he tells me I am in for a treat. Damn right, I am.. If I have to roam around the hotel to take a shower, everyone here is in for a treat. So, it turns out, we were “upgraded”. The clerk was sorry that Steve will not be awarded his points for his whatever card for this, since it is an upgrade, and their system won’t take it. Once I arrived on our floor (number 25th, for club member lounge people) we had a shoe shining machine, our own lounge, a meeting room, and about 10 rooms on the floor. I got the corner room. I was mildly amused by the fact that there was a door bell to my room. I understood when I opened the door, and saw that I had 2 bedrooms, one queen size bed, and one king size bed, an office, a living room, a kitchenette, a mini bar the size of a small country, and three bathrooms. And here i was wondering about bathrooms. I also had a walking closet between the king size bed room, and the bathroom with the mini-low sink for washing your hair. We went out for steak and frites besides our hotel, nice food, nice staff, one waitress kept on dropping plates, and I have never witnessed waiting staff with such bad manners. She reached across the table, put her boob in a guests face, and tried to grab plates from the second seat across the table from where she was. So much for taking plates from the left of the guest, she was practically laying across the table to reach plates. She was talking to us in English, while we answered her in french, at the end of our visit, she clued in that we could speak french.

The phone call.

Steve is telling me that I should call my wife. For some unknown reasons, I do not call home when I travel, I use MSN, facebook, Emails, but I never really have a strong desire to call home. I am not exactly sure why. So I brush off Steve who is offering me special rates to call home using some arcane calling cards. I go downstairs to go on the internet, and I talk to one of my wife’s coworker on MSN. My wife is having a rough day at work, and he tells me that I should call her. I asked him to call her, and see if she wants me to call home. If there is nothing important, I am sure she would say that everything is fine, and there is no need to call home. I am being told that she is waiting for my call, and I should call home. I go back to my room to call. I have a bad feeling about this. I use the phone in the hotel room, and follow the instructions to call. Here is a good tip from Uncle Gilles here. Do NOT, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, use the hotel room’s phone to call long distance. If there is only one lesson to learn from this trip, AVOID MAKING LONG DISTANCE CALLS FROM YOUR ROOM. So I ignored every tingling of common sense and I called home. Everything is okay, we talked about the room, the trip, her work, I love you, you love me, etc.. 75 minutes later, I hang up. I have a feeling that this might have been a tad expensive. As I lay in bed, 15 minutes later, it is now 1:30am, I figured I should turn on the TV and check my room expenses. my lovely phone call costs me 191 Euros. Or, 300$ Canadians. The phone call costs me 300$ Canadian. I could have gotten at least two chicks at once, for that money. I called home!!! I sweat in bed until 2:30am, wondering if they would take a rubber chicken in form of payment. There goes my traveling expenses. I will have to eat peanut butter sandwiches for the rest of the trip.

This is a small note to say that I am alive and well.

I am waiting for boarding at Heahrow, going to Dublin, then i am flying to Brussels tonight.I am at those weird terminals in the airport with a keyboard that reminds me of my old trs-80.

I am making a quick reminder of topics to cover next.

Manchester Meeting
The meeting with the client was nice, everything went ok, lots of nice exchange, and driving here was quite an event. We went for lunch, and we´re talking about the weather. It will become the trend for the whole trip. We are warned that driving to Sheffield is a piece of cake, as long as we don´t take ¨the Snake Pass¨.

Of course, our Tomtom is not privvy to all the details of road closures because of snow, and all those details. Like snake pass. So the conversation in the car went like this. (while I stare at the TomTom)

Steve : Shit
Me : what? what is the matter?
Steve : what road are we suppose to avoid at all cost?
Me : Snake Pass
Steve : I just saw a sign saying ¨Sheffield via Snake Pass¨
Me: So? we didn´t go that way, did we?
Steve : Yes we did…
Me : Shit.

So, after 31 miles of twist and turns through a scenery that reminded us of BraveHeart, Winter edition, where you drive between half walls of stone, and the road is large enough for one car, but not two, really. and we were facing 18 wheelers coming at us at 50 miles an hour, we survived our Pass through ¨Snake Pass¨Our T Shirts to celebrate the event is in the mail. Steve took enough pictures to fill 5 albums, it was lovely, but stressful.

Sheffield was also lovely, it was a little town where people drive a bit crazy, and we loved out Tomtom, I was expecting our client to be a 65 year old old Grinch who didn´t understand technology, I was very surprised to see this ¨kid¨maybe 25-30 years old with his PhD, doing the kind of work he was doing. I was VERY impressed. Of course, they warned us that the 4 hours drive to Cardiff will be eventful, weather forecast announces snow, and we should avoid the bridge between England and Wales at all cost.

Needless to say, after driving for 3 hours, we ended up on the dreaded bridge. It was a bridge similar to the one between Kingston and the US, for the I-81 in Canada. except that they are ill-equipped to deal with this situation. it was quite an event to get across. The next day we heard that cars were crashed by the falling snow from the bridge. and they used army helicopters to try to disturb the remaining snow.

Cardiff was also very nice, the hotel is an old renovated train station, turned into an Art Deco place. we have pictures.

There was a car accident on our way back to Heathrow, but there was just traffic, nothing to it. We asked of a good place to eat, and the old fart in the reception sent us to the white horse. The little pub was very little, like the size of my garage, I had to duck to get in, and the place was packed. we couldn´t eat there, so we walked the 10 minutes back to our hotel. I was dead set into driving back the car to the car rental. they drove us back, and we passed by the Chinese restaurant called Hong Kong.
walking from our hotel to hong kong? or white horse?

The rubber chicken, Barb Becue, has become an embarrassment to us. We are running around so much, we barely have time to settle, take the rubber chicken out, take pictures, and move on. It seems like we cannot get the landmark, the camera, and the rubber chicken at the same time. We sometimes forgetting the camera back at the hotel, but most likely, we forget the chicken. Barb enjoyed a bit too much of the movies in the hotels.

The Wake-Up Call
We have to be up at 4:30 in the morning, to catch a cab to Heathrow for 5am. Because we are leaving for Dublin at 7am. We asked the lobby to set up a wake up call for 4:30. My phone rings at 4:31am, it is Steve, asking me if I got the wake up call, and I haven’t got it yet. I hang up. The phone rings at 4:32am, it is my automated wake up call. Let me open up a parenthesis here to mention that Steve has a very bad habit of grabbing the local accents, so Steve would have been talking like a brit for 3 days now, and it is a bit annoying, especially when we are alone. It is 4:33am and the phone rings. I dunno about you, but I tend to be a bit irritated at 4:30am, a little bit more so if it is my third phone call in 3 minutes. So I answer with a very angry “WHAT?”. The British fellow asks me ” I am just calling to verify that you are indeed awake, Sir.” So here I go ” STEVE, ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKEN JOKES, I AM UP, BUT I WILL NEVER GET READY IF YOU CALL ME EVERY GOD DAMN MINUTE.”. The little voice on the phone, sorry, lemme rephrase that, the now poor, very confused little voice on the phone tells me ” I am not Steve, this is the reception, we just wanted to make sure you got your wake up call so you will be ready for your taxi at 5am.”, So I said “Sorry.” and I hanged up. Boy am I glad I never worked in a hotel.

TomTom and Hotels
TomTom, sooo close, but no cigars. We are now 0 for 3 in finding our hotels. Our first hotel in Manchester, we didn’t have the proper address, we had a street name. Turns out it is the airport street, after reaching our final destination, we were in the parking lot of the Manchester Airport. The hotel was 350 meters behind us, we found out only after browsing the local POI on the TomTom (Point of Interest). Our second hotel was in Cardiff, again, no addresses on our paper, just the street name. After reaching the streets, no hotels to be seen, and none in the local POI of the TomTom. It turns out the hotel just changed its name, so Tomtom couldn’t see it. Then, back in Heathrow, we went to the Sheraton on the A-4, by the airport. Well it turns out there were 2 Sheratons on that road, by the airport, and we tookt he wrong one.