Traveling to Spain!

I arrived in Spain last Tuesday in the morning and I must say, passing through their border was fantastic! The woman just looked at my passport and stamped it and she did not ask any questions.  Last year when I lived in Scotland for 2 months I had to pass through the border at Heathrow and the man there played 20 questions with me before allowing me to pass.   Spain has it set up a bit weird, apparently you pass through the border once you enter Spain but you don’t go through customs until you get to your final destination.  Which would’ve been perfect for me, but like a klutz I checked in one of my carry-on bags right before the flight from JFK to Madrid with its end destination being Madrid. As soon as I passed the border in Madrid, I realized this little mistake and hauled arse to get to the belt to quickly grab my backpack before I lost it forever in Madrid.

With backpack finally in hand, I had unknowingly past the point of no return in the airport meaning that I had to go back through security again with my carry-on luggage. I was an unhappy camper, but I just bit my tongue and quickly went through security again.  I realized afterward that Spain is the only country I have been in where they do no tell you the actual location of your terminal until like 1 hour ahead of time.  This would be perfectly okay if the airport in Madrid wasn’t so large.  My lay over was only 3 hours but I spent an hour and a half of it being lost and figuring out how to re-enter the airport.  Then finally I realized I had no idea where I was going, and apparently that was okay because Spain had no idea where my plane was going to land either.  Once I found out the gate number I hauled arse again and the walk still took like 20 minutes to get to that side of that airport. 

Once on the side of the airport I quickly boarded for my third and final flight from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela. The flight was only 50 minutes long which was wonderful.  Well it was wonderful until the lovely lady in front of me decided to recline her seat all the way back and was practically resting her head on my knees.  The chair was crushing my kneecaps at first but I managed to cross my legs to avoid the pain.  It helped at first but after 20 minutes like that, I tried to get the woman’s attention to tell her that she was hurting me, but then the intercom goes off saying we’d be landing shortly and to return chairs to normal position.  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.  The man beside me was watching the entire situation and kept asking if I was alright and I just kept saying “No se preocupe, sobreviviré.”

Once landing in Santiago I went through customs with my luggage.  This was fantastic again, the man only asked if I had anything to claim and I graciously said “No!” and he allowed me to pass without filling out any paperwork. I was so excited to finally be leaving.  I quickly grabbed a taxi and went to my hotel to rest for a few hours. 

I stayed at San Lazaro Hotel and it was delightful.  The lady at the front desk was unbelievably helpful and answered all my questions and recommended some places on a map.  My room was beautiful and my bathroom was fantastic.  After a few hours I got up and scoured the streets looking for a bite to eat.  This was the first time culture shock hit me, I forgot that Spaniards don’t actually eat dinner until like 9pm or so. I was looking for a place to eat around roughly 7pm. Every place I walked by seemed to be closed except for the restaurant attached to my hotel.  I walked in and ordered chicken and rice and it was amazing. It was one of the best chicken and rice dishes I have ever had in a long time.   I then left the restaurant and walked around a bit more to try to discover the town a bit.  After that brief walk, I returned to the hotel and went to sleep because the following day I was going to meet my friend Jesus and go on a whirlwind of adventures with him.