Planes, Buses, Trains and Automobiles

Day two started in the Madrid airport, with an overpriced Sprite and a complete lack of interrnet.  It was easy to find my way to the shuttle bus that takes you from terminal 1 to terminal 4.  Terminal 4 is the beautiful new terminal in the airport, with great architecture.  I made my way all the way down to the ground floor of terminal 4 to the Renfe section.  I was under the impression that by purchasing an AVE ticket with Renfe (high speed long distance train), I would have a code on my ticket that I could use to get on the cercanias (municipal trains).  However, the customer service desk at Renfe informed me that the price I got my train ticket for (30 euros) did not include any other perks.  One of the attendants helped me purchase a cercanias ticket from T4 to Atocha, and was very happy that I was Canadian and not American. So I bought my ticket and headed towards the platform for the train.

The train was beautiful- my first glimpse into how great trains are in Europe.  Mind you, this was a commuter train. But still. I had a short trip from terminal 4 to Atocha, the downtown station in Madrid.  It took about 20 minutes, at which time I got to relax without carrying bags all around the airport.  I looked out the window at what seemed like a very industrial and concrete Madrid.

Once I got to Atocha, I started to get the most confused.  The signs really didn't make sense on where to go to catch the train I needed for Malaga, and the station was HUGE so it was hard to navigate.  I just followed all the people from the platform area to the ticketing area.  The ticketing area was insanse... people everywhere, everything in Spanish, no clue where to go to wait for my train to leave.  I got to this train station at 1:30, and my train didn't leave until 5:30.  I wanted to give myself as much time as possible to navigate from the airport to the train.  Finally I spotted a Renfe customer service desk, where the man there ushered me up to the top floor (the terminal to catch my particular train).  By this point, I was sick of carrying around my heavy luggage (you need to haul it on to a security x-ray belt) and I knew my parents would be wondering where I was (I was supposed to email them at the airport, but that didn't work so well).  So I sat my bags down and made my way over to these incredibly complicated and stupid pay phones.  After making about a billion mistakes, I finally figured out how to make a call to let my parents know I was alright.  Then I saw these cool cart things that carry around your luggage, so I made a deposit on that as well.  The cart was extremely noisy, but it was better than hauling my luggage around like I was before.

So with about 3 hours to kill and an empty stomach, I decided to eat at what seemed like the most reasonably cheap restaurant in the station - Burger King.  And so, my first meal is Spain came from an American fast food chain.  I ate my whopper and enjoyed people watching (FYI- the combos at Burger King in Spain can come with a beer instead of a soft drink... I was temped but too drowsy).  The Atocha train station is actually quite beautiful.  They have a botanical garden right in the middle of the station that you can walk through, it was really exotic.  After my lunch, I ordered a Cafe con leche (coffee with milk) which turned out being a shot of espresso and some milk (I was warned about the coffee in Spain!).  Luckily, I like my coffee bitter and dark, so I enjoyed the espresso-with-a-little-milk drink.

 Finally, the train to Malaga was boarding.   I heard that it is first come first served for luggage storage on Renfe trains, so I ran down to the train to try and stow my luggage.  I ended up putting all my luggage in the wrong car, and had to get someome to help me move it to my correct car.  I learned that it really isn't that hard to find a place to store luggage in the AVE trains, so I definitely won't panic as much next time.  Now, these high speed AVE trains are GORGEOUS.  They are ultra modern with automatic sliding glass doors between the cars, and a cafeteria car that serves snacks and drinks.  They even play movies on these trains (they were playing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on my ride).   The scenery was also very very gorgeous all the way down... there were mountains and fields and little towns zipping by as we traveled at 300km an hour towards Malaga.  I had really wanted to stay awake for most of it to look out the window, but I crashed from my second dose of gravol.  Finally, I woke up an hour from Malaga, bought another cafe con leche to stay awake, and watched the European countryside go by. 

Tips for anyone doing this trip:
1) Don't worry about navigating Madrid's airport, its easy.
2) Keep your cercanias ticket even after you enter the station, because you will need it to scan to leave the station.
3) Ask for help at the Renfe customer service desk, they speak English and can point you in the right direction.
4) If you are at Atocha, remember there are three levels.  The very bottom level is the cercanias trains and some AVE trains.  The second level are ticket vendors, the street, restaurants and shops.  The top floor is the rest of the AVE trains, and some other longer distance trains.
5) You will have to go through a mini-security station on the top floor before you enter the terminal with all the trains.  You can pass in and out of this security station freely, but you will have to scan your bags each time.
6) There is no wifi at the Atocha train station
7) There is plenty of space on the train for your luggage, and they don't limit you for what luggage you can bring on the trains.

Part One: Living the High Life in Club Class

So much has happened in the last 72 hours, and I have been way too busy to find time to sit and type it all out! But I know that if I don't write about it soon, I will forget about what has happened.  So here goes, the first leg of the trip.

I got to Pearson airport 3 hours until departure, and said goodbye to my parents.  Not a sad goodbye, because I was way too excited to begin this trip.  I headed past everyone in cue to the Air Transat club class check in, and checked in fine (no overweight bags for me! hooray!).  Once my bags were checked, I went through security very quickly.  Everyone working at the airport seemed very young and chilled out... the security guys were all joking together about something.  It kinda took the edge off the whole security experience, but was also a little weird (its supposed to be an intense process for safety purposes!).  After that, I walked around the airport trying to find two items: a refillable water bottle to purchase (I didn't bring one) and a scratch bingo card to pass the time.  They don't seem to sell either in the airport (the bingo card I was a little suprised... I mean, they do sell alcohol in the airport, why not lottery-based items!).  Then I surveyed my meal options for dinner (finally settling on a parisian baguette sandwich which wasn't that good).  I ate and tried to pass my time watching 30 rock episodes.  Then I tried to walk as slowly as possible to and from the Starbucks near the front of the terminal to kill more time.  I still ended up having about 2 hours in the gate area to wait (my plane was delayed an hour).  Everyone around me was talking about the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage across nothern Spain.  It seemed like most of the people on my flight were doing it.  I popped a gravol and tried to pass the time with a steamer and my kindle. 

Finally we boarded the plane, and I took my seat in Club Class at the front of the plane.  I was most definitely the only person under 60 in Club Class.  I ended up sitting next to an old lady (who had my window seat!).  Her name was Elsbeth and she was pretty cool.  She has been traveling all over the world her whole life with her husband.  Her husband had died recently, and she still travels to pass her time.  She was telling me about good stores and restaurants to check out in Barcelona if I went there.  She also kept ordering me and her wine (she said "c'mon, live a little" and I can't say no to an old lady).  When we first got our seats and waiting for takeoff, the flight attendants passed out sparkling wine and these really great travel kits (blankets, neck pillows, eye masks, earplugs, lip balm, hand lotion, toothbrushes and toothpaste).  When we were up in the air, we got these little snacks and chocolates before they put on the flight's movies (the best exotic marigold hotel - which my old lady seatmate loved, and night at the museum).  I watched parts of the first movie but then I fell asleep for the rest.  I managed to get some hours of sleep on the flight, and by the time I woke up it was breakfast time.  The whole flight seemed to go by so fast.  Finally we arrived in Madrid at 12:30pm their time, and I said goodbye to my old lady friend.

Navigating through Barajas Airport in Madrid was really, really easy.  All the signs were in English and Spanish, and there were lots of pictures and arrows on the ground to point you in the right direction.  I got my luggage very quickly, and tried to find out where I could get internet in my terminal.  There is not free wifi in this particular airport, like there was in Pearson.  They had these little internet stations that I paid 2euros to use, only to find out that Facebook blocked these stations, and I couldn't use my email on it either because my password contains a character that wasn't on the keyboard.  Then I found a "use wifi here" section of the terminal, which ended up being an area that you buy wifi if you wanted to.  Moral of story- next to impossible to use the internet in Barajas airport.