Madrid, Spain, Europe

I got up today and had to get all my stuff packed up. I’ve become so accustomed to living out my backpack, that since I’ve been unpacked for almost a week, it felt strange to have to pack everything up again. I got all that done and then went out to have a big lunch at El Chaparito (the Mexican place I enjoyed a few days ago). I’m not sure what the food is going to be like when I get to Cuba, so I figured I’d better fill up now in case it’s the last big meal I have for a week.

I got to see Vivi for a few minutes when she finished work so I got to say bye to her and thanks for letting me crash on her couch for the week. While I didn’t take a Spanish course while in Spain like I had planned, I think I’ve picked up a few little things and then I’ll take a course when I arrive in Bogota. This trip to Cuba is going to be a good test though, because I’m not sure that many of them are going to speak English like they do in Madrid.

I left for the airport and instead of taking the bus like I normally do from Madrid city center, I took the metro. It turned out to be a little faster, and I didn’t have to walk all the way down to Plaza de Cibiles with my backpack. My flight to Havana had originally been scheduled for 3pm, but I got an email from my travel agent last week saying that it had been pushed back to 8pm. It was annoying because of the time I was going to arrive in Havana, but I guess it was better finding out earlier in the week rather than at the airport.

I got to the airport at 5:30pm and found an enormous queue of people for my Cubana Airlines flight to Havana. Of course nothing was in English (and why should it be), so I didn’t really know what was going on. I stood in the VERY slowly moving line and started to get a little nervous at about 7pm when I was still in line. Finally a guy from the airline came over and checked out my passport and asked if I knew about the delay. I said of course I did because the plane was meant to take off four hours ago. He said “oh no, not that delay. I mean the delay until tomorrow morning.” Ugh. So apparently everyone in line was making a big deal out of this delay and that’s why it was taking so long. Instead of taking off at 8pm tonight, we’ll be taking off at 7am tomorrow.

This actually ended up being a blessing because instead of leaving at 8pm and arriving in Havana at 2:30am, we will leave at 7am and arrive in Havana around noon. This is a much more ideal time to get a taxi into the city and find my casa that I’ve booked. We also got put up in a four star hotel by the airport called The Auditorium and it was really nice. I had a giant room all to myself, with a free dinner buffet included, and free transfers to and from the airport. I’m certainly not going to complain. I’ve emailed my casa hosts to let them know that I won’t be arriving there tonight, but I’m not sure that they’ll be checking their emails as often as most of us do in Europe or the US. Oh well, I’m going to try to get an early night’s sleep because I’m waking up at 4:15am to get the shuttle to the airport. That’ll be fun!!