Sally, Tom and Barbara are headed to walk the Camino Via de la Plata today! Even the most exciting of adventures generally starts with the tedious task of queuing and waiting… taxi, shuttle, check-in, security, boarding…. The taxi’s uneventful, quite good fun actually – the driver has to take a call on speaker phone from his daughter’s school which is hilarious. The poor teacher, unaware of her pilgrim audience, rambles on about said daughter’s poor attitude to learning and the importance of knuckling down at this crucial time in her education, asking the taxi guy to sort her out! He solemnly agrees to have strong words with his wayward child and we all start giggling as the call ends and listen to the driver’s recounts of his own schoolboy misdemeanours. I don’t think his daughter’s got to much to worry about tonight! Next – check -in! Always industrious when it comes to avoiding Ryanair’s money grabbing tricks we have checked in just 2 bags, squashing our belongings together and carrying the 3^rd backpack onboard empty and deflated enough to pass as a hand bag. Cunning! 🙂 Check-in complete and we’re off to join our next queue – security!

Tom was first. His carry on bag went straight thought the scanners and out the other side. Mine was next but was detained. Barbara’s followed and was also put to one side for further investigation. I couldn’t think what I might have had in my bag that could have aroused suspicion but it turned out it was the foil wrapped cheese roll. The border guard said it looked like a ‘bomb component.’ Strangely, Tom’s identical bomb component had been allowed through. Barbara’s cling-film wrapped lunch was apparently checked to see if it was a food product (I’m not sure how!) Maybe when she unwraps it later she will find it has been nibbled at the corners by the border force bap testers? Anyway,we were through and we still had our sandwiches!

Tom and I decided we were starving. Perhaps it was from the trauma of almost losing our cheese rolls, but we decided we needed more food and went off in search of crisps. Barbara tried to dampen our spirits by reminding us that we could have purchased 6 packets for a quid down at Pound land but we would not be deterred. We were on holiday (sort of) and we would have snacks! WHSmith was selling their delicious slightly off crisps at a discount price so all 3 of us left happy.

The final queue of the day was upon us, on UK soil anyway – the gate! The gate that actually isn’t a gate and is not going to ‘close’ 30 minutes before the flight (fear mongering myths to ensure prompt arrival!) This last queue is the craziest. It never fails to astound me how many people stand to queue for boarding, for ages, when there is absolutely no need! We all have seat numbers! Everyone’s getting on! It makes no difference which order you board…

But

still people queue… I truly do not understand this phenomenon. Even though you are in the regular stingy people queue, and know that the priority passengers all get to board first, you still stand and wait… You could be chilling out in an air lounge chair reading a book. I do not queue. Tom and Barbara do not queue. We resist, even when the queue is down to just a few stragglers, we resist. We hold our nerve. We will relax here in our seats until the very last second, even when it is clear we are completely unrelaxed as we are now watching the diminishing line with a nervous tension, ready to leap in to action. Ahhh, the satisfaction of knowing you chilled till the final second! And even better when you eventually do leave through the gate,the final passengers, only to find that the 147 passengers before you are all squashed on a bus waiting anyway, the priority passengers tightly packed in to the corners 30 minutes earlier looking slightly less smug! 🙂 We hold our nerve, Tom is first to lose it, heading over when the queue is down to two, and we are on board and up and flying Madrid!

The folks don’t seem to notice the turbulence that has me controlling my panicked breathing as I take my self to my happy place. Respect! We land down in Madrid and sail through passport control, picking up the bags and redistributing everyone’s gear in to it’s correct backpack. From Madrid we know we need to head to Atocha Train Station to get a connection to Seville.

The fastest and easiest way to get there is to take the yellow airport bus (turn right outside arrivals to find bus-stop, departing every 15 minutes and 5 euros each, approx. 20 minute journey time.) We find Atocha station easy as pie, it’s the last stop, and head to buy our tickets.

The ticket people are all grumpy and short tempered – we are in the capital after all… And when we are told that the fare is going to be over 170 euros for the 3 of us we reconsider. It’s only 2.5 hours journey…. We decide to check out the coaches (coach station is left out of Atocha station and a straight ahead 15 minutes walk) and discover it costs only 23 euros for the 6 hour bus journey to Seville (21 euros for the pensioners!) Tonight’s bus leaves at midnight and whilst Barbara, ever happy to save a few quid, is up for it, Tom is loathe to spend a night on a bus, particularly when he is told there are just three seats left and he will be spending his night most likely with an elderly dribbling Spanish hulk of a bloke leaning on him (this is Tom’s dark imagination’s prediction) so the olds head back to the train station. They do get a great discount on Spanish rail on account of them being over 60 years – 40%, at least until Brexit, so decide to take the 7pm train, get a hotel in Seville and meet me in the morning. I am on a tighter budget and opt for the bus. I walk them back and we say our hasta luegos.

I’ll just kill a few hours wandering around Madrid, supping some beers. I spot a Lidl and stock up on pastry products for the night ahead. If I’m going to take the budget bus I may as well make it a cheap night. I’m opposite the bus station now, in a happy, lively, vibrant bar with a cana and some freebie tapas. The adventure has begun, alone, for now! X