One Night in Madrid

[Written Wed, Aug 2 on bus from Boston to Portsmouth]

I have just landed back in the US after having the pleasure of spending the night in Madrid courtesy of Iberia Airlines. I wish I had known that it would happen because I would have better prepared to seize the opportunity to explore a new European city but as it was, I will admit with some shame that I did no such thing. I did embrace the free Internet that I got for my troubles and managed to get some work done, so I suppose not a total loss.

This all transpired because I missed my connection in Madrid due to a very late flight from Rome, for reasons that were never shared with us lowly passengers.

We reached the terminal in Madrid about 10-15 minutes before my next flight was due to depart. In a leisurely manner I approached the information desk at the arrival terminal and said to the gentleman "I will need to get on another flight to Boston." He looked at my boarding pass, frowned a bit, shook his head and said "no... you can still get on this one."

"Great!" I thought, thinking it must be delayed a bit. Not the case. He checks his screen and says again, "you can make it but RUN!"

I looked at him with a dubious expression and he emphatically pointed in the right direction and said again "RUN, GO!!"

So off I took at full throttle, down three long escalators to the subterranean train platform, bolted onto the waiting train which thankfully left the platform very soon thereafter. Upon arrival at the "satellite" terminal (always a problem when the terminal name contains the word "satellite") I burst out the doors, up three escalators only to realize that the gate for this flight was at the far end of the terminal. Of course.

Why I didn't just give it up then I don't know, but I kept running, working into a full sweat by the time I reached the deserted gate area from which my flight had likely departed at least 10 minutes before.

During a rather time-consuming visit to the Iberia service desk, it became clear that no other flight was available yesterday and I would have to stay overnight at a nearby hotel at Iberia's expense. Thankfully the woman at the counter upgraded my hotel and booked me on the same exact flight the next day, giving me an exit row window seat. In addition to the hotel cost, I would be given lunch and dinner that day and breakfast the following morning, along with two 3-minute phone calls. But, she warned me, you do not want to take your suitcase with you because then you will have to go through the whole check-in process again tomorrow. Better to leave it here at the airport since the entirety of Europe is on holiday now that August has arrived.

The hotel actually was quite nice and I happily exchanged my two calls for 24 hours of internet service in my room. I was told I would get a little "goodie bag" of items at the hotel but when I asked about this, they had never heard of such a thing. I was then forced to purchase exorbitantly expensive tiny toiletries from the hotel vending machine. Thankfully I had a toothbrush and change of "delicates" with me.

In the end it was fine, I got some work done, read a huge amount of my book, managed to sleep pretty well and made the flight today without issue. Home again, home again.

But these experiences are at least worth the lessons that you learn:

• Never accept a layover of less than 2 hours
• Always bring more "essentials" in your carry-on than you think you will need
• Trust your gut instinct: if you know damn well that you're going to miss that flight, save the energy and use it instead to go out exploring whatever city you're being held in. Would have been a much more rewarding use of all that sweat.

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