We (that’s Rob and me, plus friends Heather and Ken) headed to the Calgary airport just before lunchtime to board our first flight - from Calgary to Toronto.

While hanging out in the Maple Leaf Lounge in Calgary, we mentioned to each other how much we hate the Toronto airport… but since we wouldn’t have to go through customs there, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

HAH!

We four hogged the front row of the plane and made use of the complimentary wine.

We arrived without any issues and made our way to the (very crowded) lounge to hang out for a couple hours before boarding the flight to Madrid. When we arrived, the tote board said we should go to gate E51. Okie dokie.
While at the lounge, they changed it to gate 165A. I looked up every YYZ airport map I could find and none of them listed that gate - not even the airport’s own map.
No matter, though, since they changed it again to gate 167… which also wasn’t on any map. We asked around and everyone pointed us to gate E67, which is apparently the same as 167, but there is no signage to let you know this. We get to that gate and the board behind the check-in counter says “San Diego.” Turns out it was actually the right gate… sorta. We went through the counter at gate E67, then walked quite a ways to gate E65, then went down a jetway that said 165. Trust me, we weren’t the only ones confused!

Once on board, everything improved. We were in the sleeper pod section with noise-cancelling headphones and Air Canada’s “Best Sleep I Ever Had” playlist, which knocks me right out. After a decent dinner, I donned the ‘phones, loaded the playlist, and me and my airplane socks got a couple hours’ sleep.

Off the plane in Madrid - with the usual miles-long walk between the gate and the customs area. The airport spruced up the walk with some fun coloured plexiglass hallways, though.

Customs, though…. ugh. I’m glad we were in the front of the plane, because we were near the front of the queue and it still took over a half hour to get processed, as they only had two agents working for awhile. Easy breezy once we saw an agent, though, then we got a cab and headed to the hotel. Ken speaks Spanish, so we let him sit up front and chat up the cabbie on the way - and to make sure we got to the correct hotel! We did.

The Intercontinental Hotel is near the city centre and (as usual) Viking Cruise Lines knocked it out of the park when they chose this hotel. Frequented by celebrities and diplomats, it looks a lot classier than we felt after 16 hours of travel time. Luckily, our rooms were ready and we headed up to crash for a bit. The room itself is really nice.

The wardrobe, dresser, and headboard are all inlaid mahogany. Beautiful.

We even have a balcony overlooking the courtyard, although it’s too hot and humid to make much use of it. Downstairs is a really nice bar and restaurant, which we might take advantage of at some point.

And there’s a round seating area with a grand piano and gorgeous marble floors (the entire hotel has inlaid marble floors, but this room has the prettiest design).

I had a brief walk around our neighbourhood and found it to be busy, but nice. I didn’t feel unsafe at all in this part of town and there are ample places to walk without having to get into the street. In fact, the main boulevard has a tree-lined pedestrian walkway right down the centre.

Not far from the hotel is a lovely building that turned out to be the Centre for American Cultural Studies. They teach English as well as classes on American culture (as if it isn’t already permeated into every corner of the world already).

Like many other European cities, Madrid has a mixture of old and new architecture, often living side-by-side.

Then back to the room for a much-needed shower and a nap. That evening, we met Heather and Ken down in the Intercontinental Club (we upgraded our rooms to include this).

They have some nice tapas in the club every evening - the beef “whatever-it-was” was absolutely delicious, as were the veggie samosas.

Also on the bar were veggie sandwiches, smoked salmon rolls, cheese and fruit, and a whole plethora of tiny desserts. It was all good.

Since Ken is the only one of us fluent in Spanish (my español is mostly limited to menu items, finding a washroom, and a handful of profanity expressions), we let him get the instructions on how to work the espresso machine.

The club also has its own concierge, which we took advantage of. The other three booked a tour of the royal palace and I got a ticket to one of the two amusement parks. Unfortunately, she accidentally booked the park ticket for today instead of tomorrow, and we don’t yet know whether or not they’ll accept my ticket at the park tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

But for now: SLEEP. Jet lag has set in pretty hard and I had 16 emails that needed attention before we went down to the club, then six follow-ups to those before I could sit down to write this. (I’m president of my condo board, vice-chair of the local handbell society, membership director of the provincial handbell guild, plus on the planning committee of a big handbell festival coming up next month and ALL OF THEM are super-busy with stuff right now.)

Nite-nite, y’all.

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